OFFICIAL REPORT. 
501 
comparatively stationary about a week. We once more began to entertain a 
hope that we had become fixed for the winter ; but it proved a vain one, for on 
the last day of November a strong wind from the westward set in, with thick, 
snowy weather. This wind created an immediate movement in the ice. Sev- 
eral fractures took place near us, and many heavy hummocks were thrown up. 
The floe in which our vessels were imbedded was being rapidly encroached 
upon, so that we were in momentary fear of the ice breaking from around them, 
and that they would be once more broken out and left to the tender mercies of 
the crashing floes. 
On the following day (the 1st of December) the weather cleared ofi", and the 
few hours of twilight which we had about noon enabled us to get a glimpse of the 
land. As well as we could make it out, we appeared to be off Gascoigne Inlet. 
We were now clear of Wellington Channel, and in the fair way of Lancaster 
Sound, to be set either up or down, at the mercy of the prevailing winds and 
currents. We were not long left in doubt as to the direction we had to pur- 
sue. The winds prevailed from the westward, and our drift was steady and 
rapid toward the mouth of the sound. 
The prospect before us was now any thing but cheering. We were deprived 
of our last fond hope, that of becoming fixed in some position whence opera- 
tions could be carried on by means of traveling parties in the spring. The ves- 
sels were fast being set out of the region of search. 
Nor was this our only source of uneasiness. The line of our drift was from 
two to five miles from the north shore, and whenever the moving ice met with 
any of the capes or projecting points of land, the, obstruction would cause frac- 
tures in it, extending ofl^to and far beyond us. 
Cape Hurd was the first and most prominent point ; we were but two miles 
from it on the 3d of December. Nearly all day the ice was both seen and heard 
to be in constant motion at no great distance from us. In the evening a crack 
in our floe took place not more than twenty-five yards ahead of the Advance. 
It opened in the course of the evening to the width of one hundred yards. 
No further disturbance took place until noon of the 5th, when we were some- 
what startled by the familiar and unmistakable sound of the ice grinding against 
the side of the ship. Going on deck, I perceived that another crack had taken 
place, passing along the length of the vessel. 
It did not open more than a foot : this, however, was sufficient to liberate 
the vessel, and she rose several inches bodily, having become more buoyant 
since she froze in. The following day, in the evening, the crack opened sev- 
eral yards, leaving the sides of the Advance entirely free ; and she was once 
more supported by and rode in her own element. We were' not, though, by 
any means, in a pleasant situation. The floes were considerably broken in all 
directions around us, and one crack had taken place between the two vessels. 
The Rescue was not disturbed in her bed of ice. 
December 7th, at 8 A.M., the crack in which we were had opened and formed 
a lane of water fifty-six feet wide, communicating ahead at the distance of 
sixty feet with ice of about one foot in thickness, which had formed since the 
3d. The vessel was secured to the largest floe near us {that on which our 
spare stores were deposited). At noon the ice was again in motion, and began 
to close, affording us the pleasant prospect of an inevitable " nip" between two 
floes of the heaviest kind. In a short time the prominent points took our side. 
