140 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS, 
October, was the time when the vessels were stationed in their 
winter quarters, and therefore on the part of the crew of the 
Victory, it was rational to suppose that their labours as far as 
the navigation of the vessel was concerned, were drawing fast 
to a close. The great object of solicitude therefore, now was to 
select the safest place where the Victory could be laid up for the 
winter, for it was too evident that the place in which she then 
lay, was surrounded with many dangers, and wholly destitute of 
the least protection from the violence of the winds. The country 
itself presented few or no temptations, not even those of a common 
kind, which distinguished the wintering places of any of the 
ships, w hich had been employed in the former expeditions. The 
islands by which they were surrounded, appeared to have the 
curse of barrenness upon them to the utmost possible extent; 
a solitary bird at times showed itself, but it was only on its 
passage to its natural haunts, and even the animals indigenous 
to the climate, appeared to visit them only on particular occasions, 
but seldom made them the adopted place of their abode. Com¬ 
mander Ross was so thoroughly convinced of the ineligibility of 
the situation in which the Victory then lay, that in the evening 
he took the whale boat, with the hope of discovering a passage 
by which the ship could be got out. He was fortunate enough 
to discover one, but the flood tide had packed the ice so closely 
that any attempt to force a w T ay through it would have been fruit¬ 
less. The temperature of the air was this day 21°, the sea 27°. 
On the 29th, a heavy gale came on to blow from the north 
accompanied by snow, and which tended in no trifling degree 
to increase the danger of their situation. It was however deter¬ 
mined to use every exertion to get the ship into the clear water 
outside, the bearing of which was north east, to north west by 
north. From the north west to the south was a solid body of ice 
closely packed. 
Early on the morning of the 80th, the ship was got under 
weigh: her course lay through a passage of about three quarters 
of a mile in length, and the tide running at the rate of three 
miles an hour, but it was found that the ship stemmed the tide 
only one mile an hour. To the great surprise of Capt. Ross 
