110 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1819. occurred, as it frequently did during the winter, with a hard gale, and the 
^yv/' thermometer very low, I believe that no human being could have remained 
alive after an hour’s exposure to it. In order, therefore, to secure a com- 
munication between the ships, a distance not exceeding half a cable’s length, 
as well as from the ships to the house on shore, a line was kept extended, 
as a guide from one to the other. About the middle of October the snow 
began to fall in smaller flakes than during the summer; and soon after 
this, whenever it fell, it consisted entirely of very minute spiculce, assuming 
various forms of crystallization. The meridian altitude of the sun was 
observed this day by an artificial horizon, which I notice from the circum- 
stance of its being the last time we had an opportunity of observing it for 
about four months. 
17 & 18. On the 17th and 18th, our hunting parties reported that the deer were 
more numerous than they had been before, which made us conclude, that they 
were assembling their forces for an immediate departure over the ice to the 
continent of America, as we only saw one or two on the island after this 
time. They had been met with, since taking up our quarters, in herds of 
from eight to twenty, and from forty to fifty were seen in the course of 
one day. A thermometer placed in the sun at noon, on the 18th, rose only 
Tues. 19. to — 9°, the temperature in the shade being — 16°. 
It had for some time past been a matter of serious consideration with me, 
whether it would be necessary to cut the ice round the ships, which had 
by this time become so firmly attached to the bends, that they were 
completely imbedded in it. There happened to be only two or three persons 
in the expedition, who had ever been frozen up during a whole winter 
in any of the cold countries, and I consulted these as to the expediency of 
doing so. This precaution, it would seem, is considered to be necessary, 
from the possibility of a ship being hung by the ice attached to her bends, 
and thus prevented from rising and falling with the tide ; in consequence 
of which, a plank might easily be torn out near the water-line, by the 
weight of the ship hanging entirely on that particular part. I was re- 
lieved from any apprehension on this score, however, by knowing how small 
the rise and fall of the tides were in this place ; and also by having observed 
that a spring-tide caused the whole mass of ice in the harbour to detach 
itself from the beach, along the whole line of which it split, and was 
lifted ; so that both ships and ice arose and fell in a body with the tide. The 
only question, therefore, that remained, was, whether the lateral expansion 
