238 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



June neav y i ce at tne entrance of the bay, on its south-east side, was aground 

 ^-y^j on rocks, having on them in several parts only seventeen feet water at low 

 tide ; and in one place, which till now had been covered by the ice and 

 snow, the gneiss peeped above the surface at half-ebb. On the eastern 

 side of the island, along which we rowed two or three miles, the soundings 

 are regular and deep in most places near the shore. A good deal of ice 

 still remained attached to the land ; but as far as we could distinguish to 

 the N.N.E. there was a lane of clear water, wide enough for the naviga- 

 tion of the ships. We met with large flocks of king, eider, and long-tailed 

 ducks, the two former species having made their appearance only a day 

 or two before. From this time we generally procured a few ducks daily for 

 the use of the ships, the whole being served in lieu of other meat, accord- 

 ing to the " game-laws" already established. We saw besides numbers of 

 the larus argentatus, and at the mouth of the bay, in seven fathoms watei;, 

 a fish supposed to be a salmon, three feet long, swimming near the bottom. 

 The clearness of the water here allowed the rocks at the bottom to be plainly 

 distinguished at that depth. 



Sun. 2. On the 2d, at three P.M., a thin white cloud was observed to ex- 

 tend across the northern sky, from north-east to south-west, being then 

 about 65° high in the centre. The whole of the heavens to the south- 

 ward of this was covered with a similar kind of cloud, that to the north- 

 ward exhibiting a clear blue sky. The edge, which was well defined, 

 formed a very perfect arch, and here the cloud was much more dense than 

 in any other place, reminding one of a veil of gauze, of which there were 

 more folds in that part than elsewhere. Though the wind was with us at 

 W.b.N., it blew gently over to the S.S.E., still retaining its perfect and 

 continuous arch-like form at the margin. In a quarter of an hour it had 

 got 20° on the south side of the zenith, in forty minutes was only 25° high, 

 and in an hour and a quarter had totally disappeared beneath the southern 

 horizon, leaving the whole of the heavens perfectly cloudless. This was 

 the most striking phenomenon of the kind we had ever witnessed, and 

 while the arch remained near the zenith this magnificent canopy had a sin- 

 gularly grand and imposing appearance. 



Mon. 3. On the morning of the 3d at six A.M. both the ships' companies, under 

 their respective officers, were set to work upon the ice. A line was accu- 

 rately marked out from each of the Fury's quarters, where they were fifty 

 feet apart, diverging to two hundred and fifty at the edge of the floe, the 



