334 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. where tliere is usually a plentiful vegetation for them to feed upon. We 
were ascending the hill, which was found by trigonometrical measurement 
to be eight hundred and forty-seven feet above the level of the sea, and on 
which we found no mineral production but sandstone and clay iron-stone^ 
when a breeze sprung up from the eastward, bringing up the Griper which 
had been left several miles astern. We only stopped, therefore, to obtain 
observations for the longitude and the variation of the magnetic needle ; the 
former of which was 112° 53' 32", and the latter 110° 56' 11" Easterly, and 
then immediately returned on board, and made all sail to the westward. 
After running for two hours without obstruction, we were once more mortified 
in perceiving that the ice, in very extensive and unusually heavy floes, closed 
in with the land a little to the westward of Cape Hay, and our channel of 
clear water between the ice and the land gradually diminished in breadth 
till at length it became necessary to take in the studding sails, and to haul 
to the wind, to look about us. I immediately left the ship, and went in a 
boat to examine the grounded ice off a small point of land, such as always 
occurs on this coast at the outlet of each ravine. I found that this point 
offered the only possible shelter which could be obtained, in case of the ice 
coming in ; and 1, therefore, determined to take the Hecla in-shore immedi- 
ately, and to pick out the best birth which circumstances would admit. As I 
was returning on board with this intention I found that the ice was already 
rapidly approaching the shore ; no time was to be lost, therefore, in getting 
the Hecla to her intended station, which was effected by half-past eight P.M., 
being in nine to seven fathoms water, at the distance of twenty yards from 
the beach, which was lined all round the point with very heavy masses 
of ice, that had been forced by some tremendous pressure into the ground. 
Our situation was a dangerous one, having no shelter from ice coming 
from the westward, the whole of which, being distant from us less than half 
a mile, was composed of floes infinitely more heavy than any we had else- 
where met with during the voyage. The Griper was three or four miles 
astern of us at the time the ice began to close, and I therefore directed 
Lieutenant Liddon by signal to secure his ship in the best manner he could, 
without attempting to join the Hecla ; he accordingly made her fast at 
eleven P.M., near a point like that at which we were lying, and two or three 
miles to the eastward. 
At the time of making the Hecla fast, a current was setting to the west- 
ward, at the rate of a mile and a half an hour, with a strong eddy running 
