20 THE LAST VOYAGE OE THE KARLUK 
fifteen miles west of Manning Point, about where 
Collinson, in the Enterprise , had spent the winter 
of 1853-4. We had come about 225 miles from 
Point Barrow, considerably more than half the dis¬ 
tance to Herschel Island. It seemed at the mo¬ 
ment as if we should be able to get through for the 
rest of the way. As events proved, however, this 
was our farthest east, for the next day, August 
13, the open water closed up astern, the ice came to¬ 
gether all around us and held the ship fast. There 
was scarcely any wind and consequently no move¬ 
ment of the ice. 
The next day conditions remained the same. 
We tried to force our way towards the land but 
failed and could do nothing but wait. For several 
days there came no appreciable change either in 
weather or in our position until on the eighteenth we 
had a heavy snowstorm all day, which was just what 
was needed to make assurance doubly sure; the 
snow formed a blanket on the ice and later on its 
melting and freezing cemented the ice snugly about 
the ship so that she was made almost an integral 
part of the floe itself. The weather was perfectly 
calm but so dull and hazy that for several days we 
could not see the shore. Finally on the twenty- 
first we had a fine, clear day and about thirty miles 
south of where we lay, could see the snow-capped 
summits of the Romanzoff and Franklin Moun- 
