OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



263 



and there occur some beaches of rounded stones ; but the chief part of the \ 8< * 2 



July. 



shore presents a smooth gneiss rock, having numerous streams of water v-^-<w 

 trickling over it. We were not, however, under the necessity of going even 

 thus far for a supply of this necessary article, abundance of the purest kind 

 being found on every large piece of ice at this season. 



At half an hour before midnight, when it was just low water by our mark 

 on the ice, a violent rush of tide suddenly came from the northward, threat- 

 ening to carry us adrift with three stout hawsers a-head. This kind of 

 occurrence which, in a smaller degree, was a very common one, added much 

 to the anxious nature of this navigation ; for as it happened indifferently at 

 all times of tide, the most incessant attention and exertion were barely 

 sufficient to enable us to obviate its effects. It was as easy to account for 

 this irregularity, as it was difficult to resist its impetuosity. It frequently 

 happened that some heavy floe-pieces, drifting down towards us, wedged 

 themselves in between the grounded masses that lay a-head of the ships, 

 where they produced the effect of turning the stream of tide by forming a 

 temporary dam. By the continual pressure of the water these would often 

 at length break, or otherwise disengage themselves, occasioning a violent 

 rush of the tide through the now unobstructed passage, and frequently 

 forcing themselves with extreme violence against the ships' bows. 



As the time of high water approached, on the morning of the 12th, the Frid. 1!?. 

 land-ice began to float off, scarcely giving us time to cast off the hawsers 

 from it, and leaving the whole line of the shore entirely bare. Having now 

 nothing to steady us towards the shore, an eddy of the tide carried the Fury 

 with some violence against the largest berg, nearly destroying one of our 

 quarter-boats. For a few minutes her situation was a most disagreeable 

 one, for the heavy floe-pieces now setting in from the offing caused the 

 berg, alongside of which we were immoveably fixed, to take a roll outward, 

 and a similar one in the opposite direction would inevitably have placed us in 

 some very awkward predicament. 



As soon as the stream of ebb had cleared the shore a little, we cast off and 

 shifted our birth one mile farther to the northward, being at noon, by observa- 

 tion, in lat. 67° 12' 38". At four P.M., the prospect having very much im- 

 proved, we again made sail with a light air of south-easterly wind ; and after 

 running four or five miles in regular soundings, found the ice too close to 

 proceed much farther, and at the same time observed an opening in the land, 

 appearing like a river, a little beyond us. No land-ice being in sight, the 



