298 SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



322. Starboard tack, both compasses . . . NEbE|E . . EfE. 'J ° 



1^,' Alexander's a minute or two after returned to NEbEfE, and Walker's to E-J-N. 



Alexander's compass was placed on the binnacle, the other stood about five feet higher, in its 

 usual place. 



In order to follow up the observations on this phenomenon on some other 

 day, I sent a boat to fix a flag upon the ice, by way of marking the spot, but 

 the margin was so broken up .that it was impracticable to land upon it : a 

 light buoy was therefore moored for the same purpose, though with little 

 chance of retaining its station on account of the depth of the water. During 

 the remainder of the night, when the wind and weather obliged us to keep 

 more to the northward, the compasses were not thus influenced *. 

 d - 2> The weather clearing up on the morning of the 2d we found that a strip of 

 ice about half a mile in width had been lately separated from the fixed ice, 

 but ths to our impatience appeared like a drop of water in the ocean. Con- 

 siderable "streams" and " patches" were also drifting along the margin 

 during the day, and we were employed in beating through them in order to 

 make fast to the floe, the weather being unfavourable for keeping under way. 

 In the evening we secured the ships to the ice, being in twenty-three fa- 

 thoms at the distance of two miles to the westward of Tern Island. For 

 several hours in the course of this day, there was something in the atmo- 

 sphere which distorted objects into very curious shapes. The principal fea- 

 ture in this phenomenon was a constant waving tremulous motion near the 

 horizon, causing the whole body of ice to appear at times as if turning round, 

 and making one almost giddy to look steadfastly at it. The distant land was 

 sometimes flattened down so as to appear like a single thick black line upon 

 the horizon ; then again it would assume a shape of this kind, 



while its real outline, when not thus distorted, was this, 



* The spots near which this local attraction was found are designated on the chart by this 

 mark ®. 



