THE advance in THE ICE, 26TII SEPTEMBER, 1850. 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
I AM reluctant to burden my pages with the wild, 
but scarcely varied incidents of our continued drift 
through Wellington Channel. We were yet to he fa- 
miliarized with the strife of the ice-tahles, now broken 
up into tumbling masses, and piling themselves in 
angry confusion against our sides — now fixed in cha- 
otic disarray by the fields of new ice that imbedded 
them in a single night — again, perhaps, opening in 
treacherous pools, only to close round us with a force 
that threatened to grind our brigs to powder. I shall 
have occasion enough to speak of these things here- 
after. I give now a few extracts from my journal ; 
some of which may perhaps have interest of a differ- 
ent character, though they can not escape the sadden- 
ing monotony of the scenes that were about us. 
I begin with a partial break-up that occurred on the 
23d. 
“ September 23. How shall I describe to you this 
pressure, its fearfulness and sublimity ! Nothing that 
