248 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. rather than persevere any longer in the attempts we had been lately making 
with so little success, to push on directly to the westward. I, therefore, 
gave Lieutenant Liddon an order to run back a certain distance to the east- 
ward, Avhenever he could do so, without waiting for the Hecla, should 
that ship be still detained ; and to look out for any opening in the ice to the 
southward, which might seem likely to favour the object I had in view, 
waiting for me to join him, should any such opening occur. 
The westerly breeze freshening up, with continued snow, the ice about 
the ship began to move at seven P.M. The usual superficial current was 
soon observed to make, carrying with it to the eastward the loose and broken 
fragments of ice. At eight o’clock the heavier masses had also acquired 
motion, and it became necessary to shelter the Hecla from their approach 
by shifting her once more to the eastward of the point. In doing this, we 
found the current at the extreme point running at the rate of two, or two and 
a half miles an hour, so as to require great caution in laying out our warps 
to prevent the ship being carried back to the eastward; and this not three 
hours after it had first begun to make. The frequent experience we had of the 
quickness with which currents are thus formed, in consequence merely of the 
wind setting the various bodies of ice in motion, naturally leads to this 
useful caution, that one or two trials of the set of the stream in icy seas 
must not be too hastily assumed in drawing any conclusion as to its constant 
or periodical direction. I am convinced, indeed, that, of all the circum- 
stances which render the navigation among ice so precarious and uncertain, 
there is none so liable to constant alteration, and on which, therefore, so 
little dependence can be placed, as an indication of the existence of a 
passage in this or that direction, as the set and velocity of the superficial 
currents. 
'ues. 15. The breeze died away in the course of the night, just as the ice was 
beginning to separate, and to drift away from the shore ; and, being suc- 
ceeded by a wind off the land, which is here very unusual, Lieutenant 
Liddon was enabled to make sail upon the Griper at two A.M. on the 15th, 
in execution of the orders I had given him. As I soon perceived, however, 
that she made little or no way, the wind drawing more to the eastward on 
that part of the coast, and as the clear water was increasing along the shore 
to the westward, much farther than we had yet seen it, I made the signal 
of recall to the Griper, with the intention of making another attempt, which 
the present favourable appearances seemed to justify, to push forward 
