302 
* 
APPENDIX NO. II. 
glacier which occupies its inner curve, would prove an eligible winter 
harbor. 
We were detained in this helpless situation three valuable days, the 
pack outside hardly admitting the passage of a boat. But, on the 
13th, fearing lest the rapidly-advanciug cold might prevent our pene¬ 
trating farther, wo warped out into the drift, and fastened to a 
grounded berg. 
That the Department may correctly apprehend our subsequent 
movements, it is necessary to describe some features peculiar to our 
position. The coast trended to the N.N.E. It was metamorphic in 
structure, rising in abrupt precipitous cliffs of basaltic greenstone from 
eight hundred to twelve hundred feet in perpendicular height. The 
shore at the base of this wall was invested by a permanent belt of ice, 
measuring from three to forty yards in width, with a mean summer 
thickness of eighteen feet. The ice clung to the rocks with extreme 
tenacity; and, unlike similar formations to the south, it had resisted 
the thawing influences of summer. The tidal currents had worn its 
seaward face into a gnarled mural escarpment, against which the floes 
broke with splendid displays of force; but it still preserved an upper 
surface comparatively level, and adapted aa a sort of highway for far¬ 
ther travel. The drifting ice or pack outside of it was utterly impene¬ 
trable; many bergs recently discharged were driving backward and 
forward with the tides; and thus, pressing upon the ice of the floes, 
had raised up hills from sixty to seventy feet high. The mean rise 
and fall of the tide was twelve feet, and its rate of motion two and a 
half knots an hour. 
In this state of things, having no alternative but either to advance 
or to discontinue the search, I determined to take advantage of a small 
interspace which occurred at certain stages of the tide between the 
main pack and the coast, and, if possible, press through it. I was 
confirmed iu this purpose by my knowledge of the extreme strength 
of the Advance, and my confidence in the spirit and fidelity of my 
comrades. The effort occupied us until the 1st of September. It was 
attended by the usual dangers of ice-penetration. We were on our 
beam-ends whenever the receding tides left us in deficient soundings ; 
and on two of such occasions it was impossible to secure our stoves so 
as to prevent the brig from takiug fire. W e reached latitude 1 8 ° 43^ N. 
on the 29th of August, having lost a part of our starboard bulwarks, a 
quarter-boat, our jib-boom, our best bower-anchor, and about six hun¬ 
dred fathoms of hawser; but with our brig in all essentials uninjured. 
We were now retarded by the rapid advance of winter: the young 
