86 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
grew to a foot in width and as the day wore on 
widened still more until it was two feet wide on an 
average. 
By 10 a. m. there was a narrow lane of water 
off both bow and stern. The ship was now entirely 
free on the starboard side but still frozen fast in 
her ice-cradle on the port side; her head was 
pointed southwest. On account of the way in 
which the ice had split the ship was held in a kind 
of pocket; the wind, which was light and from the 
north in the earlier part of the day, hauled to the 
northwest towards afternoon and increased to a 
gale, with blinding snowdrift, and the sheet of ice 
on the starboard side began to move astern, only 
a little at a time. The ship felt no pressure, only 
slight shocks, and her hull was still untouched, for 
the open ends of the pocket fended off the moving 
ice, especially at the stern. It was clear to me, 
however, that as soon as the moving ice should 
grind or break off the points of these natural 
fenders there was a strong probability that the 
moving ice-sheet would draw nearer to the star¬ 
board side of the ship and, not unlike the jaws of 
a nut-cracker, squeeze her against the sheet in 
which she was frozen on the port side, particularly 
as the wind was attaining a velocity of forty-five 
miles an hour. 
Everything indicated, therefore, that the time 
