OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
19 
the ships through the ice, taking advantage of every occasional opening 18 19 - 
which presented itself, by which means we advanced a few hundred yards 
to the westward during the night. 
At six, A.M., on the 23d, a thick fog came on, which rendered it impos- Frid - 23 - 
sible to see our way any further. It often happens, in thick weather, that 
much distance is lost by ships taking a wrong “ lead,” as the channels 
between floes of ice are technically called ; so that, on the weather 
clearing, it is discovered, when too late, that another opening, perhaps 
a few yards only from that through which they had sailed, would have 
conducted them into clear water. We, therefore, warped to an iceberg, 
to which the ships were made fast at noon, to wait the clearing up 
of the fog, being in lat. 73° 04' 10", long. 60° 09' 07". The soundings 
were one hundred and ninety-seven fathoms, on a muddy bottom, and 
the variation of The needle 82° 33' 21" westerly. Some observations 
on the intensity of the magnetic force, by Captain Sabine, will be found 
in the Appendix. At eight, P.M., the weather cleared up, and a few 
small pools of open water were seen here and there, but the ice was 
generally as close as before, and the wind being to the westward of north, 
it was not deemed advisable to move. When ships are thus beset, there 
is a great advantage in securing them to the largest body of ice that can be 
found, and particularly to the bergs, as they are by this means better 
enabled to retain their situation, the drift of the ice being generally less, 
in proportion to its depth under water. Another advantage in securing a 
ship to an iceberg is, that these bodies usually keep a small space of clear 
water under their lee, in consequence of the quicker drift of the floes and 
loose ice to leeward. It not unfrequently happens that a ship is thus dragged 
into clear water, as the sailors express it, that is, that the whole of the 
floe-ice is carried to leeward past the berg to which the ship is attached, 
leaving her at length in an open sea. 
The ice appearing to open a little in the W.N.W., on the mornirlg of the Sat. 24. 
24th, preparations were made for warping the ships in that direction, the 
wind being still to the westward of north, but the fog came on again so 
thick, that it was necessary still to remain at the berg. At noon, by our 
observations, we were in lat. 72° 59' 50", long. 60° 07' 54", making a drift 
of four miles and two-thirds in twenty-four hours, in a S. 1° E. direction. 
The soundings had deepened to two hundred and sixty-five fathoms, the 
bottom being light-green mud. The afternoon was occupied in obtaining 
D 2 
