242 LANCASTER SOUND. 
to open river, one and three fourths to two miles. 
Marks of recent action excessive here ; hummock 
banks massive ; and tables sometimes five feet thick, 
rising to a height of eighteen feet. From the east and 
northeast, the trend of the break is to the southward 
at first, and some two miles below to the westward. 
"4. To the west; over the broken region of varied 
ice, traveled over in my attempts to reach Barlow's 
Inlet some days ago. Distance to lead, one mile. 
Chasm very irregular ; but from the point I visited at 
the north and east, trending nearly due west, and 
pointing to the southward of Cape Hotham, 
"From all this it is clear enough that we are a mov- 
ing floe, comparatively isolated. The only point of 
our circumscribed horizon I have not visited, and where 
no frost-smoke asserts the near proximity of water, is 
the northwest. Whether on that side the ice of Lan- 
caster is blocked against us by the easterly current, or 
whether the frost has made our floe one more speck 
in the massive field, is the only question remaining. 
'^November 29. The doubt is gone. Our floe, ice- 
cradle, safeguard, has been thrown round. Its eastern 
margin is grinding its way to the northward, and the 
west is already pointing to the south. Our bow is to 
Baffin's Bay, and we are traveling toward it. So far, 
ours has been a mysterious journeying. For two 
months and more, not a sail has fluttered from our 
frozen spars ; yet we have passed from Lancaster 
Sound into the highest latitude of Wellington Chan- 
nel, one never attained before, and have been borne 
back again past out point of starting, along a capri. 
ciously varied line of drift. Cape Biley is bearing, by & 
compass, S. i E., N.N.E i E. (true) ; and Beechy Head, 
by compass, S.E. i E., N. ^ E. (true). Cape Hurd is 
