Hudson's Strait and Bay. 



the first half of June, across the entrance to Hudson's Strait. This, 

 of course, would haw proved an impenetrable harrier, during that 

 time, to any ship desiring to run into Hudson's Bay, even if the ice in 

 the Strait itself had been loose enough to work through. 



Most of this ice, which closed the door to Hudson's Bay, was ef the 

 heavy arctic variety and had come many miles from the northward. 

 Some of it was over forty feet in thickness of solid blue ice, not field 



solid sheet of ice which had frozen jusfas we saw it. How^ong this 

 ice had been in process of formation it is difficult to judge. The 

 depth to which water will freeze has, so far as I know, never been 

 determined, but it is certain that ice, being a very poor conductor of 

 heat, when once a certain thickness of it has formed, the rate of thick- 

 ening will be very slow. 



Lieut. Kay, of the United States Signal Service, gives as a result of 

 his observations at Point Barrow, in the Arctic, that the greatest 



Early on the morning of June 16 we made the land, Cape Best on 

 Eesolution Island, distant about ten miles off the starboard bow, but 

 the ice having run together the engines were stopped. We were in 

 the midst of heavy field ice tightly jammed. With the exception of 

 Eesolution Island, which is a bleak, barren and desolate looking island 

 with rocky and bold shores, nothing was to be seen except ice all 

 around us. As the event proved we were destined to remain in this 

 icy trap for three long, monotonous weeks, drifting about lielplessh 

 with the ice pack, without volition on our part; 



"In thrilling regions of rhnk-ribbed ice 

 To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, 

 And blown with restless violence about 



I hiring rhe three long weeks in which we were beset in the ice, time 



