OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
221 
quarter causing a ripple on the sea, by which the edge of the ice was con- 1820. 
stantly washed and rapidly dissolved. My intention, therefore, at this time 
was, carefully to watch the increasing breadth of this open water; and, 
whenever a depth of three fathoms could be found, to warp the ships through 
it along-shore, a^ the only means which appeared likely to be allowed us of 
commencing our summer’s navigation. 
On the 20th, there being a strong breeze from the N.N.E., with fog andThur. 20. 
rain, all favourable to the dispersion of the ice, that part of it which was 
immediately around the Hecla, and from which she had been artificially de- 
tached so long before, at length separated into pieces, and floated away ; 
carrying with it the collection of ashes and other rubbish which had been 
accumulating for the last ten months ; so that the ship was now once more 
fairly riding at anchor, but with the ice still occupying the whole of the 
centre of the harbour, and within a few yards of her bows : the Griper had 
been set free in a similar manner a few days before. But it was only in that 
part of the harbour where the ships were lying that the ice had yet sepa- 
rated in this manner at so great a distance from the shore ; a circumstance 
probably occasioned by the greater radiation of heat from the ships, and 
from the materials of various kinds which we had occasion to deposit upon the 
ice during the time of our equipment. 
Lieutenant Liddon accompanied me in a boat down the west shore of the 
harbour, to the southern point of the entrance, in order to sound along the 
edge of the ice, where we found from seven to fifteen feet water ; the ice 
about the entrance appeared still very solid and compact, and not a single 
hole was at this time noticed through any of the pools upon its surface, ex- 
cept one which was made by a seal, and which discovered the thickness of the 
ice to be there between two and three feet. 
Mr. Dealey, with a hunting party, returned late at night without success, 
having lost his way in a thick fog, that hung over the land at intervals 
during the day, a circumstance which did not often occur while the ships 
remained in harbour : we frequently, however, especially in the month of 
July, perceived heavy fog-banks covering the horizon in the offing, while the 
weather was perfectly clear near the shore. 
On the 21st, Mr. Fife returned from our hunting station twelve or fourteen Frid. 21. 
miles to the south-west, and reported that the appearance of the ice in that 
quarter was much the same as in Winter Harbour, except that the space 
between the ice and the land was in most parts not so broad. 
