354 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



1822. aC count, though the freezing process is constantly going on, a weather shore 

 J-^Sj is frequently the clearest, when no other part of the sea is free from young 

 ice. The latter part of this fact became evident soon after our getting under 

 way, the whole of the night's formation of ice having been drifted down and 

 stopped at the narrows ; producing so impenetrable a barrier that, at seven 

 A.M., the Fury was altogether stopped by it, and the Hecla coming up astern, 

 in half an hour afterwards. Boats were immediately got under the bows, 

 and every other means resorted to that we could devise, to break the young 

 ice ahead of the ships, but sometimes to no purpose for two hours together. 

 The ice was just in that state in which there is no such thing as operating 

 upon it ; too thick to allow a ship to be forced through it, too tough for regu- 

 lar sawing, and yet dangerous for men to walk upon. To get a boat her own 

 length through it would occupy a dozen men a quarter of an hour, and that 

 by standing in the water the whole time, and after all without being able to 

 make a channel for the ship. When a vessel is thus stopped, provided the ob- 

 stacle does not exceed a certain strength, and the wind is favourable at the 

 time, there is nothing so effectual in forcing her ahead as what is technically 

 called " sallying," which consists in the men suddenly running from side to 

 side of the deck, thus causing the ship to roll and relieve herself from the 

 friction and adhesion of the young ice against her bends. It is astonishing 

 indeed to see how immediately a progressive motion is sometimes thus im- 

 parted to a ship, when all other and more laborious means have failed in ad- 

 vancing her a single inch. 



While thus employed during the forenoon, we began to perceive about 

 half-past ten that the ships were driving back with a tide setting from the 

 eastward, which gradually increased in strength, and occasioned us to lose 

 one or two miles of ground while struggling to extricate the ships from the 

 ice. At three P.M. we at length got clear, and in passing Cape Ossory at 

 five found the tide slack, it being now low water by the shore. From this 

 concluding observation on the tides in this part of the Strait of the Fury 

 and Hecla, as well as from all our preceding remarks, and especially the 

 more regular ones of Mr. Crozier already given, I believe there can be 

 little doubt that the flood-tide here comes from the westward. That there 

 is besides this, during a great part of the summer, a permanent current 

 setting from the same direction is also sufficiently apparent ; and the joint 

 effects of these two causes appear to account satisfactorily for the various 

 irregularities observed, as well in the set of the stream as in the rise and 



