OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
219 
strip of water which I have before described as occurring next the beach, as 1820 . 
if looking out for food. 
From the 7th to the 10th, a good deal of rain fell at intervals, which pro- Mon. 10. 
duced a very sensible alteration in the ice, making it look of a blue colour 
all over the surface, and increasing the size and number of the holes in a 
much greater degree than during the same interval at any other period. 
Mr. Reid, who returned on the 10th from his hunting-excursion to the 
south-west, reported, however, that he had not, during his absence, per- 
ceived the ice to be in motion, nor was there any perceptible alteration in 
the general mass upon the coast, except in the increase of the number of pools 
upon it, and in the breadth of the little channel between the ice and the 
land. This channel, if so it may be called, when the depth was not yet 
sufficient to float one of our whale-boats, was from forty to fifty yards wide in 
the part of the harbour next us, but much more on the northern and eastern 
sides, where the shoal-water extends to a greater distance from the shore. 
We were in hopes that the spring tides, which took place about the 11th, 
would have been serviceable in breaking up the ice, which now began to 
approach that state of rottenness, as the sailors term it, which made it 
dangerous to walk across the pools, as we had hitherto been accustomed to 
do, to avoid the trouble of going round. No sensible alteration was pro- 
duced, however, by the highest tide ; probably in consequence of the ice 
being already so completely detached from the shore, as to allow it to rise 
freely, and without resistance of any kind, like any other floating body ; the 
height and velocity of the tides are here, indeed, so small, that it was not 
reasonable to expect much from them in this way. 
On the 14th a boat passed, for the first time, between the ships and the Frid. 14 . 
shore, in consequence of the junction of a number of the pools and holes in the 
ice, and on the following day the same kind of communication Avas practicable 
between the ships. It now became necessary, therefore, to provide against 
the possibility of the ships being forced on shore by the total disruption of 
the ice between them and the beach, and the pressure of that without, by 
letting go a boAver-anchor underfoot, which Avas accordingly done as soon as 
there Avas a hole in the ice under the bows of each, sufficiently large to alloAV 
the anchors to pass through. We had noAv been quite ready for sea for some 
days ; and a regular and anxious look-out was kept from the crow’s nest for 
any alteration in the state of the ice, which might favour our departure from 
Winter Harbour, in Avhich it noAv became more than probable that Ave Avere 
2 F 2 
