OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
81 
Mr. Fisher made an experiment on the specific gravity of a piece of ice, 1819. 
taken from the mass to which the ship was secured. Being formed into a cube, 
whose sides measured one foot three inches and a half, and set to float in the 
sea, two inches and three quarters of it remained above the surface, the tem- 
perature of the water at the time being 31°. 
On the 11th there was no alteration in the ice near the ships, and Mr. Bush- Sat. 11- 
nan, whom I despatched at day -light to the western cape, reported, on his return, 
that appearances were equally unpromising in that quarter. Mr. Dealy was 
fortunate enough to kill the first musk-ox that our sportsmen had yet been able 
to get near ; but, as it was at the distance of eight or ten miles from the ships, 
our present situation, with regard to the ice, would not allow of my sending a 
party of men to bring it on board. A piece of the meat which Mr. Dealy 
brought with him was considered to taste tolerably well, but its smell was by 
no means tempting. The dip of the magnetic needle, observed here by Captain 
Sabine to-day, was 88° 36'. 95. 
The wind increased to a fresh gale from the northward during the night, and Sun. 12. 
on the morning of the 12th flew round to the N.N.W. in a very violent gust. 
Soon after the ice began to drift past us to the eastward, at the rate of a mile 
an hour, and carried away with it the berg to which the Hecla had been at- 
tached on the 9th and 10th ; so that we considered ourselves fortunate in having 
moved to our present birth, which was comparatively a safe one. The Griper 
remained also tolerably secure, and well sheltered from the drifting ice, which 
in the course of the forenoon, had acquired a velocity of more than a mile and 
a half per hour. In the afternoon the ice began by degrees to drift from the 
shore to the westward of us, but the wind blowing hard from the wrong 
quarter, it was impossible to think of moving the ships. A constant and 
vigilant look-out was also necessary, lest the berg to which our hawsers were 
secured should be forced off the ground, in which case we must inevitably have 
been driven back many miles to the eastward, and the labour of the last ten 
days would have been lost in a few hours. The night was cold and inclement, 
with a heavy fall of snow, which being blown among the hills, caused great 
drifts in the ravines, by which this part of the island is intersected. 
I must now mention an occurrence which had caused considerable appre- 
hension in our minds for the two last days, and the result of which had nearly 
proved of very serious importance to the future welfare of the expedition. 
Early on the morning of the 11th I received a note from Lieutenant Liddon, 
acquainting me that, at day-light the preceding day, Mr. Fife, with a party of 
M 
