OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
175 
The saw being then entered in the hole under the stern, was worked 
in the usual manner, being suspended by a triangle made of three spars ; 
one cut being made on the outer part of the trench, and a second within 
an inch or two of the bends, in order to avoid injuring the planks. A 
small portion of ice being broken oflf now and then by bars, handspikes, and 
ice-chisels, floated to the surface, and was hooked out by piecemeal. This 
operation was a cold and tedious one, and required nine days to complete it. 
When the workmen had this morning completed the trench within ten or 
twelve feet of the stern, the ship suddenly disengaged herself from the ice to 
which she had before been firmly adhering on the larboard side, and rose in 
the water about ten inches abaft, and nearly eighteen inches forward, with a 
considerable surge. This disengagement, to which the sailors naturally 
applied the term “ launching,” confirmed my supposition, that the ship was 
held so fast by the ice, as to make it dangerous to alter materially the 
stowage of the holds, but in a manner the very reverse of what I had 
apprehended. This circumstance, however, on consideration, it was not 
difficult to explain. In the course of the winter, the strong eddy winds about 
the ships had formed round them a drift of snow, seven or eight feet deep in 
some parts, and, perhaps, weighing a hundred tons ; by which the ice, and 
the ships with it, were carried down much below the natural level at which 
they would otherwise have floated. In the mean time the ships had become 
considerably lighter, from the expenditure of several months’ provisions ; so 
that, on both these accounts, they had naturally a tendency to rise in the 
water as soon as they were set at liberty. 
The ships being now once more fairly afloat, I directed a strict and 
careful survey to be commenced of all the provisions and stores of every 
kind remaining on board each ship, and at the same time the Griper to be 
supplied with the quantity which the Hecla had stowed for her, amounting 
nearly to the proportion of every kind for twelve months. In the mean 
time, a party of hands were occupied in breaking and weighing the stones 
for ballast, while others were getting out the sails and boats, and our car- 
penters, armourers, coopers, and sail-makers, having each their respective 
employments, our little colony now presented the most busy and bustling 
scene that can be imagined. It was found necessary to caulk every part of 
the upperworks, as well as all the decks, the seams having been so much 
opened by the frost, as to require at least one, and in many parts two 
threads of oakum, though the ship had scarcely ever laboured at all since 
1820. 
May. 
