I 
BREAK-UP. 339 
ten. Not even in Lancaster Sound did the destruction 
of surface go on more rapidly. The wind was a mod- 
erate breeze from the northwest, and the floes were 
advancing on each other at a rate of a knot and a 
half an hour, building up hummock tables along their 
line of collision. Several rose in a few minutes to a 
height of ten or twelve feet. I have become so ac- 
customed to these glacial eruptions, that I mounted 
the upheaving ice, and rode upon the fragments — an 
amusement I could hardly have practiced safely before 
I had studied their changes. 
" The snow-covered level upon which Brooks and 
myself were walking was about thirty paces wide, 
between the older ice on one side and the encroach- 
ing hummock-line on the other. Upon our return, 
after a walk of a short half mile, we found our foot- 
steps obliterated, and the hummock-line within a few 
yards of this older ice. Things are changing rapidly. 
"A new crack was reported at one o'clock, about 
the third of a mile from our ship ; and the bearings of 
the sun showed that our brig had, for the first time 
since entering Baffin's Bay, rotated considerably to 
the northward. Here were two subjects for examin- 
ation. So, as soon as dinner was over, I started with 
Davis and Willie, two of my scurvy henchmen, on 
a walk to the openings. Reaching the recent crack, 
we found the ice five feet four inches thick, and the 
black water, in a clear streak a foot wide, running to 
the east and west.=^ I had often read of Esquimaux 
being carried off by the separation of these great floes ; 
but, knowing that our guns could call assistance from 
the brig, we jumped over and hurried on. We were 
well paid. 
* This direction, transverse to the long axis of Baffin's Bay, seems to be 
that of most of our fissures. 
