224 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. quite continuous and unbroken, with the same appearance of solidity as it 
had during the middle of winter, except that the pools of water were numerous 
upon its surface. 
Tlnu. 27. On the 27th, the weather was clear and fine, with a strong and rather 
cold wind from the W.N.W., the thermometer not being higher than 37° 
during the day. The general temperature of the atmosphere had, indeed, 
before this time, begun very sensibly to decrease, and from this period the 
thermometer seldom stood so high as 40° in the shade during the rest of 
the summer. Some showers of sleet and snow prevented our sending the 
people on shore to pick sorrel, as they had been accustomed to do for some 
weeks past; this valuable plant was now on the decline, the leaves begin- 
ning to wither, and having much less of that acid taste, which constitutes its 
principal value. 
Frid. 28. On the morning of the 28th, the wind, having shifted to the southward, 
was found to set the ice (close to the edge of which the Hecla had anchored) 
against the cable, putting some strain upon it in addition to that of the ship. 
We veered, therefore, to thirty fathoms, to enable the anchor to hold the 
better, and ranged the other cable. At half-past eight A.M. I rowed along- 
shore to the southward in a boat as far as the ice would allow us to go, which, 
however, was not a single yard beyond where Lieutenant Liddon and myself 
had gone, with almost equal facility, eight days before. I then landed, and 
walked about two miles to the southward, where I had a clear view for several 
miles in that direction. The space between the ice and the land between 
the entrance of Winter Harbour and Cape Hearne was so small that a boat 
could not possibly have gone that distance, even if the passage out of the 
harbour had been clear. The only appearance of the breaking up of the ice 
consisted in a quantity of it having been recently pressed up into hummocks 
in some places near the beach ; but, upon the whole, I was compelled to 
admit, in my own mind, that there never was a sea which appeared less 
navigable. On my return, I perceived that our people were busy in the boats, 
and found when I got on board, that the Hecla had been forced by the ice into 
thirteen feet water abaft, the whole body having come home upon the cable, 
so as to drag the anchor. Lieutenant Beechey had, with great promptness, 
cut a bight or dock in the ice, and dropped the kedge in the middle of it, by 
which means he had, before my return on board, succeeded in getting the 
ship once more into four fathoms ; and the small bower being then hove up, 
she was hauled out into seven fathoms, and the other anchor let go, after 
