OUR DRAG. 405 
" 7 P.M. The position of things continues un- 
changed. Our ice-saw with great labor buried its 
length in the floe, reaching nearly to our stern ; but 
the submerged material is so thick that it has little 
or no effect. Wedging, by billets of wood between 
her sides and the mounding ice, was equally ineffect- 
ual. Gunpowder would perhaps release us; but that 
we^can not spare. 
"I tried to measure the depth of this inveterate 
companion of ours. Standing at our port gangway, 
I lowered the pump-rod twenty-four feet to a shelf 
projecting from the mass: beneath this, a prolonga- 
tion or tongue stretched to a depth which I could not 
determine. On the other side, to starboard, the ice 
descends in solid mass some twenty feet. Adopting 
twenty-four feet as a mean depth, and ninety by fifty 
feet as the mean of dimensions at the surface, the 
solid contents of this troublesome winter relic would 
be 108,000 cubic feet. No wonder it lifts up our little 
craft bodily. I haye made my drawings of it with 
all topographical accuracy. 
" The wind has been hauling round from the south 
to the west, and by afternoon blew quite freshly. We 
made all sail, even to studding-sails, in hopes of for- 
cing the cracks ahead, and tearing ourselves, as it 
were, from our impediment. Thus far all has failed. 
" 10 P.M. The ship is covered with canvas : she 
stands motionless amid the ice, although her wings 
are spread and tense. The wind is fresh and steady 
from the northwest. Our swell ceases with this wind, 
and the floes seem disposed to come together again ; 
but the days of winter have passed by, and the inter- 
*posing calves prevent the apposition of the edges. 
" The effects of a constant force, slight as it seems, 
