SECOND VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 



365 



a haif in thickness, incessantly drove past the ships. The distance of q 1 ^^. 

 the land a-head, under which this formation must have commenced, and v-^' 

 which appeared as though it were itself furnishing- an inexhaustible store, 

 was not more than two miles and a quarter, and the rate at which the ice 

 came past us varied from a mile to a mile and a half an hour ; so that the 

 sheet must have been formed of this thickness in the course of two hours 

 and a half at farthest. 



This continued without intermission for two days, the only annoyance 

 it occasioned being- that of preventing our communication with the shore,, 

 where some parties had previously been occupied in cutting turf for the sides- 

 of the house intended to be built as an observatory. On the night of the 

 4th, however, it began to shew its strength by causing the Hecla to drive 

 directly in our hawse, but she fortunately brought up just in time to secure 

 both ships from damage. It therefore became absolutely necessary to move 

 farther into the bay ; that we might have to encounter " younger " ice, and 

 thus avoid the risk, which now threatened us, of being driven out to sea for 

 the winter. 



On the 5th, therefore, we commenced this attempt, it being my intention Sat. 5~ 

 whenever the ice became attached to the land, to cut our way back to the 

 present station. By dint of great exertion in all the boats, our people suc- 

 ceeded in rowing out a stream anchor, and laying it down a-head of the 1 

 Hecla, which was the weathermost ship ; and by this she was enabled before 

 dark to warp about one-third of a mile farther into the bay. On the follow- Sun. 6. 

 ing day she advanced a little farther by the same means, and then by hawsers 

 run down from her the Fury was moved up to the same station. The ice 

 had now become much stronger, and the wind falling in the evening, it 

 was broken off near us and arrested in its drift, partly perhaps by the 

 ships themselves which now lay at the edge of the newly-formed floe. 

 Near the time of sunset this afternoon a splendid parhelion appeared on 

 each side at the distance of 22° 17' from the sun, displaying very rich pris- 

 matic colours and quite dazzling the eye to look steadfastly at them- A pa- 

 raselena was also seen, at night, on each side the moon, their angular 

 distance from that object measuring 23°. The thermometer fell to zero at 

 midnight and the temperature still farther decreased to — 2° on the morning 

 of the 7th, which kept every thing quiet during the day, and gave us hopes Mon. 7. 

 that no disruption would again disturb us. The fall of the thermometer to 

 zero occasioned as usual a considerable condensation of vapour into water, 



