464 
CRISIS APPROACHING. 
eran ice-master, thought, when he left us, that if we 
followed the northern leads there was almost a cer- 
tainty of our being caught, like the Swan, and the 
York, and a host of others before us. A pleasant neigh- 
borhood, truly ! Here perished the ships of '47. Here 
the North Star was beset in '48 ; hereabout, the year 
before last, the Lady Jane, and the Superior, and the 
Prince of Wales ; and, coming to our own experience 
of last year, here it was, in this very devil's hole, 
that we wore out our three weeks' imprisonment. 
Moreover, the season was more advanced than last 
year's had been. The thermometer, which stood at 
noon in the shade at 54°, sunk in the evening hours 
to 30°. At such a temperature the ice forms rapidly 
on the deeply chilled water, and the day sun barely 
melts it. We began to observe too flocks of the little 
Auk streaming south, as if to harbinger a change of 
season. It was evident that a very few days must 
decide where we should pass the approaching winter. 
The crisis came soon enough. My journal is prolix 
throughout this period ; but I venture to give it as it 
stands. I begin with the eleventh of the month. 
August 11, Monday. The wind has been nearly all 
day more or less from the northward. Now, though 
almost calm, it is from the eastern or shore side, ac- 
companied by weather sunny and beautiful. 
" We are stiU attached to the old land-floe. This 
so-called land-ice is rather a huge field, hemmed in 
by bergs, so as to be immovable. It is, however, young 
and frail, not exceeding eighteen inches in thickness, 
and perforated with water-pools, cracks, and seal-holes. 
It is so rotten that marginal pieces are continually 
breaking off, rnd carried into the chaos of floating 
drift outside. Were we to share the sair.o chance, we 
