OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
63 
which time the boats left the beach; and, by the high-water mark, it was 1819. 
considered probable that it had yet to rise full an hour longer. The time of 
high water, therefore, may be taken at half past five, which will make that of 
the full and change days about twelve o’clock. Mr. Ross found, on rowing 
round the point near which he landed, that the stream was setting strong 
against him from the northward. We had tried the current in the offing at 
noon, by mooring the small boat to the bottom, when it was found to be run- 
ning in a south direction, at the rate of half a mile per hour. At four P.M., 
near the same station, it was setting S.S.W., five-eighths of a mile an hour, so 
that it would appear tolerably certain that the flood-tide here comes from the 
northward. 
The wind became very light from the eastward, and the weather continued Sun. 29. 
so foggy that nothing could be done during the night but to stand off-and-on, 
by the soundings, between the ice and the land ; as we had no other means 
of knowing the direction in which we were sailing, than by the decrease in 
the depth of water on one tack, and by making the ice on the other. The fog 
froze hard upon the rigging, which always makes the working of the ship 
a very laborious task, the size of the running rigging being sometimes thus 
increased to three times its proper diameter. At four A.M. on the 29th, the 
current was tried by mooring a boat to the bottom, but none could be detected. 
About this time the fog partially cleared away for a little while, when we ob- 
served that the ice was more open off Cape Gillman, than when we had before 
attempted to pass in that direction. At five o’clock, therefore, we made sail 
for the point, with a light easterly breeze ; but at seven, when we had pro- 
ceeded only two or three miles, the fog came on again as thick as before : for- 
tunately, however, we had previously been enabled to take notice of several 
pieces of ice, by steering for each of which in succession, we came to the edge 
of a floe, along which our course was to be pursued to the westward. As 
long as we had this guidance, we advanced with great confidence ; but as soon 
as we came to the end of the floe, which then turned off to the southward, the 
circumstances under which we were sailing were, perhaps, such as have never 
occurred since the early days of navigation. To the northward was the land ; 
the ice, as we supposed, to the southward; the compasses useless; and the sun 
completely obscured by a fog, so thick that the Griper could only now and then 
be seen at a cable’s length astern. We had literally, therefore, no mode of 
regulating our course but by once more trusting to the steadiness of the wind ; 
and it was not a little amusing, as well as novel, to see the quarter-master 
