HAJtD CiALE. 
299 
frequent instability of the ship, rendered me at 
once uncomfortable and anxious during the whole 
of the interval between the capture of the three 
whales, and the conclusion of the process of ma¬ 
king-off. 
Being greatly incommoded by ice of a formida¬ 
ble quality, we shifted our moorings, during this 
day, to three different ffoes. The last to which 
we made fast, was remarkable for its thickness and 
solidity. It was about a mile in medial breadth, 
of a flat uniform surface, and forty feet in thick¬ 
ness of solid ice. As this floe was little affected 
by the influence of a fresh breeze that at this 
time blew from the ENE, whilst the less ponder¬ 
ous sheets around obtained a sensible drift to lee¬ 
ward, it promised to afford us comfortable moor¬ 
ings, and to enable me to acquire a quiet night’s 
rest, of which, for nearly, a fortnight, I had gene¬ 
rally been deprived. But the appearance of safe¬ 
ty was entirely deceptive, as the events of another 
day,—a day of adventure and peril, will not fail 
to prove. 
Friday, 23d August .—We had a heavy fall 
of rain in the night, with a fresh of wind at NE.: 
in the morning, about five o’clock, it veered to N., 
and increased to a hard gale. As, however, the 
wind was directly off the side of the floe, to which 
we were moored, we hoped to be able to ride out 
