ENDERBY BROTHERS 151 
denly, on the weather clearing up, found ourselves com- 
pletely beset with large pieces of drift-ice. The helm 
was immediately put down, and by the careful manage- 
ment of the sails we were enabled to pass through two 
large pieces, of about the size of our hull, which showed 
themselves under the bows just as the head-yards were 
hauled, the vacancy between just sufficient to admit the 
vessel through ; the cutter being a short distance astern, 
avoided the danger/’ 
The cutter was, however, a constant anxiety, chiefly 
on account of her habit of getting lost, perhaps from the 
difficulty of keeping up with the larger vessel in rough 
weather. On the very day after the escape : 
“ At midnight the weather became so thick that, al- 
though I could speak the cutter, I could not see her, and 
as we were now completely surrounded by broken ice 
and obliged to use the sweeps, I made a line fast to her 
to prevent our separation; the weather quite calm and 
sea smooth.” 
The wind continued so light for several days that 
progress became very slow, but the sea was smooth, and 
Biscoe was a man with open eyes and a receptive mind 
for the phenomena of nature. He gave much attention 
to the formation of sea-ice, making some acute observa- 
tions, which led him not unnaturally to erroneous con- 
clusions, for though the training of a seaman may turn 
out an excellent observer, it requires the no less arduous 
training of a scientific education to enable correct de- 
ductions to be made from the facts. 
At the end of January the surface of the smooth sea 
was beginning to freeze and cementing together the 
broken fragments of drift-ice. Biscoe was struck with 
the rapidity with which ice an inch thick was formed in 
