ROUGH WEATHER. 
121 
the Devil's Thumb. It was Lord Melville's Monu- 
ment ; so named by Sir John Ross. The islands 
which are marked on the chart as "Brown's" we did 
not see, though we passed near their assumed position. 
August 10. Another day of sunshine. Were we 
in the Mediterranean, there could not be a warmer 
sky. It ends with the sky though ; for our thermom- 
eters fell at four A.M. to 24°. A careful set of observa- 
tions with Grreen's standard thermometers gave 18° 
as the difference between the sunshine and shade at 
noonday. The young ice was nearly an inch thick. 
Myriads of Auks were seen, and the usual supply duly 
slaughtered. 
" Melville's Monument appeared to-day under a new 
phase, rising out from the surrounding floe ice, either 
a salient peninsula or an isolated rock. 
" The land ice measured but five feet seven inches, 
the reduced growth, probably, of a single season. The 
open leads multiply, for we made under sail about 
fifteen miles N.N. W." 
As the next day glided in, the skies became over- 
cast, and the wind rose. Mist gathered about the 
horizon, shutting out the icebergs. The floes, which 
had opened before with a slender wind from the north- 
ward, now shed ofl" dusty wreaths of snow, and began 
to close rapidly. 
Moving along in our little river passage, we ob- 
served it growing almost too narrow for navigation, 
and every now and then, where a projecting cape 
stretched out toward this advancing ice, we had to 
run the gauntlet between the opposing margins. 
It is under these circumstances, with a gale prob- 
ably outside, and a fog gathering around, that the 
whalers, less strengthened than ourselves, and taught 
