VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 
217 
A herd of fourteen deer being seen near the ships, a party was despatched in i82o. 
pursuit of them, with our customary want of success, it being almost impossible 
to approach them in so open and exposed a country, so that these excursions 
generally ended in a chase between the men and the deer ; some good dogs 
would, perhaps, have been serviceable to us on these occasions. 
Having taken on board our bower anchors and cables from the beach, Mon, 3. 
on account of the difficulty we should have found in removing them after 
the ice began to break up, each ship placed two stream anchors on shore 
with hawsers from the bow and quarter, to hold them in case of any 
sudden motion of the ice, the pools upon which now increased very 
perceptibly both in depth and extent from day to day. In looking 
into these pools, it always appeared, during the day, as if drops of rain 
were falling into them ; this was caused by the continual extrication of air 
from the ice which was thawing below, and by the rising of the bubbles to 
the surface. At six P.M., the atmosphere being clear and serene, the 
thermometer rose to 53 ° in the shade, but immediately on a moderate breeze 
springing up from the northward it fell to 45°. On the 5th and 6th, how- 
ever, it stood for three hours from 50° to 52°, with a fresh breeze from 
the northward, accompanied by cloudy weather ; and on the afternoons 
of the two following days, the wind being still northerly, the atmosphere 
continued for some time at the temperature of 55°. 
The dissolution of the ice of the harbour went on so rapidly in the early Thurs. 6. 
part of July, that we were greatly surprised, on the 6th, in finding, that in 
several of the pools of water, on its upper surface, holes were washed quite 
through to the sea beneath. On examining several of these, we found that 
the average thickness of the ice, in the upper part of the harbour where the 
ships were lying, did not exceed two feet, which was much less than we had 
any idea of. Towards the mouth of the harbour, however, where the water 
was deeper, no such holes made their appearance for some days after this. 
It must here be remarked, that in all cases we found the ice to be first thawed 
and broken up in the shoalest water, in consequence, I suppose, of the 
greater facility with which the ground, at a small depth below the surface of 
the sea, absorbed and radiated the heat of the sun’s rays ; and, as it is in such 
situations that water generally freezes the first, this circumstance seems a 
remarkable instance of the provision of nature for maintaining such a balance 
in the quantity of ice annually formed and dissolved, as shall prevent any 
undue or extraordinary accumulation of it in any part of the Polar regions of 
