OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
21 
*« hole” of water, in which the Hecla lay, was now so completely enclosed 1819. 
by ice, that no passage out of it could be found. We tried every corner, 
but to no purpose ; all the power we could apply being insufficient to move 
the heavy masses of ice which had fixed themselves firmly between us and 
the lanes of water without. In the mean time, Lieutenant Liddon had 
succeeded in advancing about three hundred yards, and had placed the 
Griper’s bow between two heavy floes, which it was necessary to separate 
before any further progress could be made. Both ships continued to heave 
at their hawsers occasionally, as the ice appeared to slacken a little, by which 
means they were now and then drawn a-head a few inches at a time, but did 
not advance more than half-a-dozen yards in the course of the night. By our 
nearing several bergs to the northward, the ice appeared to be drifting in that 
direction, the wind being moderate from the southward. 
About three A.M., by a sudden motion of the ice, we succeeded in getting Tue?. 27. 
the Hecla out of her confined situation, and ran her up astern of the Griper. 
The clear water had made so much to the westward, that a narrow neck of 
ice was all that was now interposed between the ships and a large open 
space in that quarter. Both ships’ companies were, therefore, ordered upon 
the ice to saw off the neck, when the floes suddenly opened sufficiently to 
allow the Griper to push through under all sail. No time was lost in the 
attempt to get the Hecla through after her, but, by one of those accidents 
to which this navigation is liable, and which renders it so precarious and un- 
certain, a piece of loose ice which lay between the two ships, was drawn 
after the Griper by the eddy produced by her motion, and completely 
blocked the narrow passage through which we were about to follow. Before 
we could remove this obstruction by hauling it back out of the channel, the 
floes were again pressed together, wedging it firmly and immoveably 
betwixt them ; the saws were immediately set to, work, and used with great 
effect, but it was not till eleven o’clock that we succeeded, after seven hours’ 
labour, in getting the Hecla into the lanes of clear water which opened more 
and more to the westward. Our latitude, by account at noon, was 73° 05' 56", 
the longitude 60° 24' 27". , 
Being now favoured with a fresh breeze from the S.E.b.S., we made con- 
siderable progress, though on a very crooked course, to the northward and 
westward. In one respect the character of the ice was here altered, as we 
found a great many floes of “ young” or “ bay” ice, which had probably / 
been newly formed in the sheltered situations afforded by the larger floes. 
