258 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



" The flood-tide coming down loaded with a more than ordinary quantity 

 of ice pressed the ship very much between six and seven A.M., and ren- 

 dered it necessary to run out the stream cable, in addition to the hawsers 

 Which were fast to the land ice. This was scarcely accomplished when a 

 very heavy and extensive floe took the ship on her broadside and, being 

 backed by another large body of ice, gradually lifted her stern as if by the 

 action of a wedge. The weight every moment increasing obliged us to veer 

 on the hawsers, whose friction was so great as nearly to cut through the 

 bitt-heads, and ultimately set them on fire, so that it became requisite for 

 people to attend with buckets of water. The pressure was at length too 

 powerful for resistance, and the stream cable, with two six and one five 

 inch hawsers, went at the same moment. Three others soon followed. The 

 sea was too full of ice to allow the ship to drive, and the only way by 

 which she could yield to the enormous weight which oppressed her was by 

 leaning over on the land ice, while her stern at the same time was entirely 

 lifted more than five feet out of the water. The lower deck beams now 

 complained very much, and the whole frame of the ship underwent a trial 

 which would have proved fatal to any less strengthened vessel. At this 

 moment the rudder was unhung with a sudden jerk, which broke up the 

 rudder case and struck the driver boom with great force. In this state I 

 made known our situation by telegraph, as I clearly saw that in the event of 

 another floe backing the one which lifted us, the ship must inevitably turn 

 over, or part in mid-ships. The pressure which had been so dangerous at 

 length proved our friend, for by its increasing weight the floe on which we 

 were borne burst upwards, unable to resist its force. The ship righted and, 

 a small slack opening in the wate-\ drove several miles to the southward 

 before she could be again secured to get the rudder hung ; circumstances 

 much to be regretted at the moment, as our people had been employed 

 with but little intermission for three days and nights, attending to the safety 

 of the ship in this dangerous tideway." 



The Hecla having been thus carried adrift by the irresistible pressure 

 of the ice, which still continued to bear down upon us with the same 

 violence as before, it became evident that all ordinary means must now 

 prove insufficient to retain the Fury in her present station. The inade- 

 quacy of any number of hawsers to bear the requisite strain, arises princi- 



