OUR FLOE. 
277 
disruptions of - the ice which we had encountered so 
far, had always been at the periods of spring-tide. The 
sun and moon were in conjunction on tlie 21st of De- 
cember ; and, adopting Captain Parry's observation, 
that the greatest efEux was always within five days 
after the new moon, we had looked with some anxiety 
to the closing weeks of that month. But they had 
gone by without any unusual movement ; and there 
needed only an equally kind visitation of the January 
moon to give us our final struggle with the Baffin's 
Bay ice by daylight. 
Yet I had remarked that the southern shore of Lan- 
caster Sound extended much further out to the east- 
ward than the northern did ; and I had argued that 
we might begin to feel the current of Baffin's Bay in 
a very few days, though we were still considerably 
to the west of a line drawn from one cape to the other. 
The question received its solution without waiting for 
the moon. 
I give from my journal our position in the ice on the 
11th of January : 
^'-January 11, Saturday. The floe in which we are 
now imbedded has been steadily increasing in solid- 
ity for more than a month. Since the 8th of Decem- 
ber, not a fracture or collision has occurred to mar its 
growth. The eye can not embrace its extent. Even 
from the mast-head you look over an unbounded ex- 
panse of naked ice, bristling with contorted spires, and 
ridged by elevated axes of hummocks. The land on 
either side rises above our icy horizon ; but to the east 
and west, there is no such interception to our wintery- 
ness. 
" The brig remains as she was tossed at our provi- 
dential escape of last month, her nose burrowing in the 
r 
