Leave Winter Harbour.--Flattering Appearance of the Sea to the
Westward.--Stopped by the Ice near Cape Hay.--Farther Progress to
the Longitude of 113° 48' 22.5", being the Westernmost Meridian
hitherto reached in the Polar Sea, to the North of
America.--Banks's Land discovered.--Increased Extent and
Dimensions of the Ice.--Return to the Eastward, to endeavour to
penetrate the Ice to the Southward.--Re-enter Barrow's Strait, and
Survey its South Coast.--Pass through Sir James Lancaster's Sound
on our Return to England.
The wind still blowing fresh from the northward and westward, the
ice continued to drift out slowly from the harbour, till, at eight
A.M., August 1st, it had left the whole space between the ships
and Cape Hearne completely clear, and at eleven o'clock there
appeared to be water round the hummocks of ice which lie aground
off that point. In the mean time, our boats were employed in
embarking the clocks, tents, and observatory, while I sounded the
entrance of the harbour in order to complete the survey, which no
opportunity had offered of doing before this time. At one P.M.,
having got everything on board, and the ice appearing to be still
leaving the shore, we weighed, and ran out of Winter Harbour, in
which we had actually, as had been predicted, passed ten whole
months, and a part of the two remaining ones, September and
August.
In running along shore towards Cape Hearne, generally at the
distance of half a mile from the land, we had from ten to sixteen
fathoms' water, and rounded the hummocks off the point in six and
a half fathoms by three P.M. As we opened the point, it was
pleasing to see that the coast to the westward of it was more
clear of ice (excepting the loose pieces which lay scattered about
in every direction, but which would not very materially have
impeded the navigation with a fair wind) than it had been when we
first arrived off it, a month later in the foregoing year; the
main ice having been blown off by the late westerly and
northwesterly winds to the distance of four or five miles from the
shore, which, from all we have seen on this part of the coast,
appears to be its utmost limit. The navigable channel, with a
beating wind between the ice and the land, was here from one to
two, or two miles and a half in width; and this seemed, from the
masthead, to continue as far as the eye could reach along shore to
the westward.
We found the wind much more westerly after we rounded the point,
which made our progress slow and tedious; the more so, as we had
every minute to luff for one piece of ice and to bear up for
another, by which much ground was unavoidably lost.
After a very few tacks, we had the mortification to perceive
that the Griper sailed and worked much worse than before,
notwithstanding every endeavour which Lieutenant Liddon had been
anxiously making, during her re-equipment, to improve those
qualities in which she had been found deficient. She missed stays
several times in the course of the evening, with smooth water
and a fine working breeze, and by midnight the Hecla had gained
eight miles to windward of her, which obliged me to heave to,
notwithstanding the increased width of the navigable channel, the
weather having become hazy, so as to endanger our parting company.
Soon after noon on the 2d, a breeze sprung up from the S.S.W.,
which, being rather upon the shore, made it likely that the ice
would soon begin to close it; we therefore began to look out for a
situation where the ships might be secured in-shore, behind some
of the heavy grounded ice which had so often before afforded us
shelter under similar circumstances. At one o'clock we perceived
that a heavy floe had already closed completely in with the land,
at a point a little to the westward of us, preventing all hope of
farther progress for the present in that direction. A boat was
therefore sent to examine the ice in-shore, and a favourable place
having been found for our purpose, the ships were hauled in and
secured there, the Griper's bow resting on the beach, in order to
allow the Hecla to lie in security without her. This place was so
completely sheltered from the access of the main body of the ice,
that I began to think seriously of taking advantage of this
situation to remove the Griper's crew on board the Hecla, in order
to prosecute the voyage in the latter vessel singly, and had
consulted the officers upon the subject. The circumstances,
however, which subsequently occurred rendering such a measure
inexpedient, because no longer necessary to the accomplishment of
the object in view, by which alone it could be justified, I was
induced to give it up, adopting the best means in our power to
remedy the evil in question.
Shortly after our anchoring the Griper's people heard the growling
of a bear among the ice near them, but the animal did not appear;
and this was the only instance of our meeting with a bear during
our stay at Melville Island, except that which followed one of our
men to the ships soon after our arrival in Winter Harbour. Both
crews were sent on shore to pick sorrel, which was here not less
abundant than at our old quarters, but it was now almost too old
to be palatable, having nearly lost its acidity and juice.
At one A.M. on the 4th, the loose ice was observed to be drifting
in upon us, the wind having veered to the eastward of north; and
soon after a floe, of not less than five miles in length and a
mile and a half across, was found to be approaching the shore at a
quick rate. The ships were immediately hauled as near the shore as
possible, and preparation made for unshipping the rudders, if
necessary. The floe was brought up, however, by the masses of ice
aground outside of us, with which it successively came in contact,
and the ships remained in perfect security; the floe, as usual
after the first violence is over, moved off again to a little
distance from the shore.
At noon the heavy floe at the point near us began to quit the
land, and at half past one P.M., there being a narrow passage
between them, the breadth of which the breeze was constantly
increasing, we cast off and stretched to the westward. The channel
which opened to us as we proceeded varied in its general breadth
from one to two miles; in some places it was not more than half a
mile. The wind was variable and squally, but we made great
progress, along the land to the S.W.b.W., and the Griper, by
keeping up tolerably with the Hecla, in some measure redeemed her
character with us. Having arrived off Cape Providence at eleven
P.M., the wind became light and baffling, so that we had just got
far enough to see that there was a free and open channel beyond
the westernmost point visible of Melville Island, when our
progress was almost entirely stopped for want of a breeze to
enable us to take advantage of it. The anxiety which such a
detention occasions in a sea where, without any apparent cause,
the ice frequently closes the shore in the most sudden manner, can
perhaps only be conceived by those who have experienced it. We
remarked, in sailing near the ice this evening, while the wind was
blowing a fresh breeze off the land, and therefore directly
towards the ice, that it remained constantly calm within three or
four hundred yards of the latter; this effect I do not remember to
have observed before upon the windward side of any collection of
ice, though it invariably happens, in a remarkable degree, to
leeward of it. I may here mention, as a striking proof of the
accuracy with which astronomical bearings of objects may be taken
for marine surveys, that the relative bearing of Capes Providence
and Hay, as obtained this evening when the two headlands were
opening, differed only one minute from that entered in the
surveying-book, and found in the same manner the preceding year.
At one P.M. on the 5th, the weather continuing quite calm, and
being desirous of examining the ice in-shore, that we might be
ready for the floes closing upon us, I left the ship, accompanied
by Captain Sabine and Mr. Edwards, and landed near one of the
numerous deep and broad ravines with which the whole of this part
of the island is indented. We were ascending the hill, which was
found by trigonometrical measurement to be eight hundred and
forty-seven feet above the level of the sea, and on which we found
no mineral production but sandstone and clay iron-stone, when a
breeze sprung up from the eastward, bringing up the Griper, which
had been left several miles astern. We only stopped, therefore, to
obtain observations for the longitude and the variation of the
magnetic needle; the former of which was 112° 53' 32", and the
latter 110° 56' 11" easterly, and then immediately returned on
board and made all sail to the westward. After running for two
hours without obstruction, we were once more mortified in
perceiving that the ice, in very extensive and unusually heavy
floes, closed in with the land a little to the westward of Cape
Hay, and our channel of clear water between the ice and the land
gradually diminished in breadth, till at length it became
necessary to take in the studding sails, and to haul to the wind
to look about us. I immediately left the ship, and went in a boat
to examine the grounded ice off a small point of land, such as
always occurs on this coast at the outlet of each ravine. I found
that this point offered the only possible shelter which could be
obtained in case of the ice coming in; and I therefore determined
to take the Hecla in-shore immediately, and to pick out the best
berth which circumstances would admit. As I was returning on board
with this intention, I found that the ice was already rapidly
approaching the shore; no time was to be lost, therefore, in
getting the Hecla to her intended station, which was effected by
half past eight P.M., being in nine to seven fathoms water, at the
distance of twenty yards from the beach, which was lined all round
the point with very heavy masses of ice that had been forced by
some tremendous pressure into the ground. Our situation was a
dangerous one, having no shelter from ice coming from the
westward, the whole of which, being distant from us less than half
a mile, was composed of floes infinitely more heavy than any we
had elsewhere met with during the voyage. The Griper was three or
four miles astern of us at the time when the ice began to close,
and I therefore directed Lieutenant Liddon, by signal, to secure
his ship in the best manner he could, without attempting to join
the Hecla; he accordingly made her fast at eleven P.M., near a
point like that at which we were lying, and two or three miles to
the eastward.
On the whole of this steep coast, wherever we approached the
shore, we found a thick stratum of blue and solid ice, firmly
imbedded in the beach, at the depth of from six to ten feet under
the surface of the water. This ice has probably been the lower
part of heavy masses forced aground by the pressure of the floes
from without, and still adhering to the viscous mud of which the
beach is composed, after the upper part has, in course of time,
dissolved. From the tops of the hills in this part of Melville
Island a continuous line of this submarine ice could be distinctly
traced for miles along the coast.
In running along the shore this evening we had noticed near the
sea what at a distance had every appearance of a high wall
artificially built, which was the resort of numerous birds.
Captain Sabine being desirous to examine it, as well as to procure
some specimens of the birds, set out, as soon as we anchored, for
that purpose. The wall proved to be composed of sandstone in
horizontal strata, from twenty to thirty feet in height, which had
been left standing, so as to exhibit its present artificial
appearance, by the decomposition of the rock and earth about it.
Large flocks of glaucous gulls had chosen this as a secure retreat
from the foxes, and every other enemy but man; and when our people
first went into the ravine in which it stands, they were so fierce
in defence of their young that it was scarcely safe to approach
them till a few shots had been fired.
On the morning of the 7th a black whale came up close to the
Hecla, being the first we had seen since the 22d of August the
preceding year, about the longitude of 91¾° W.; it therefore
acquired among us the distinctive appellation of _the_ whale.
Since leaving Winter Harbour we had also, on two or three
occasions, seen a solitary seal. The wind continued fresh from the
east and E.N.E. in the morning, and the loose ice came close in
upon us, but the main body remained stationary at the distance of
nearly half a mile.
In the afternoon a man from each mess was sent on shore to pick
sorrel, which was here remarkably fine and large, as well as more
acid than any we had lately met with. The shelter from the
northerly winds afforded by the high land on this part of the
coast, together with its southern aspect, renders the vegetation
here immediately next the sea much more luxuriant than in most
parts of Melville Island which we visited, and a considerable
addition was made to our collection of plants.
The easterly breeze died away in the course of the day, and at
three P.M. was succeeded by a light air from the opposite quarter;
and as this freshened up a little, the loose ice began to drift
into our bight, and that on the eastern side of the point to drive
off. It became expedient, therefore, immediately to shift the ship
round the point, where she was made fast in four fathoms abaft and
seventeen feet forward, close alongside the usual ledge of
submarine ice, which touched her about seven feet under water, and
which, having few of the heavy masses aground upon it, would
probably have allowed her to be pushed over it had a heavy
pressure occurred from without. It was the more necessary to moor
the ship in some such situation, as we found from six to seven
fathoms water by dropping the hand-lead down close to her bow and
quarter on the outer side.
Several heavy pieces of floes drove close past us, not less than
ten or fifteen feet in thickness, but they were fortunately
stopped by a point of land without coming in upon us. At eleven
o'clock, however, a mass of this kind, being about half an acre in
extent, drove in, and gave the ship a considerable "nip" between
it and the land ice, and then grazed past her to the westward. I
now directed the rudder to be unhung, and the ship to be swung
with her head to the eastward, so that the bow, being the
strongest part, might receive the first and heaviest pressure.
The ice did not disturb us again till five A.M. on the 8th, when
another floe-piece came in and gave the ship a heavy rub, and then
went past, after which it continued slack about us for several
hours. Everything was so quiet at nine o'clock as to induce me to
venture up the hill abreast of us, in order to have a view of the
newly-discovered land to the southwest, which, indeed, I had seen
indistinctly and much refracted from the Hecla's deck in the
morning. This land, which extends beyond the 117th degree of west
longitude, and is the most western yet discovered in the Polar Sea
to the northward of the American Continent, was honoured with the
name of BANKS'S LAND, out of respect to the late venerable and
worthy president of the Royal Society.
On the morning of the 9th a musk-ox came down to graze on the
beach near the ships. A party was despatched in pursuit, and,
having hemmed him in under the hill, which was too steep for him
to ascend, succeeded in killing him. When first brought on board,
the inside of this animal, which was a male, smelled very strong
of musk, of which the whole of the meat also tasted more or less,
and especially the heart. It furnished us with four hundred and
twenty-one pounds of beef, which was served to the crews as usual,
in lieu of their salt provisions, and was very much relished by
us, notwithstanding the peculiarity of its flavour.[*] The meat
was remarkably fat, and, as it hung up in quarters, looked as fine
as any beef in an English market. A small seal, killed by the
Griper's people, was also eaten by them; and it was generally
allowed to be very tender and palatable, though not very sightly
in its appearance, being of a disagreeable red colour.
[Footnote: Some pieces of this meat which we brought to England
were found to have acquired a much more disagreeable flavour than
when first killed, though they had not undergone putrefaction in
the slightest degree.]
At ten P.M. the whole body of ice, which was then a quarter of a
mile from us, was found to be drifting in upon the land, and the
ship was warped back a little way to the westward, towards that
part of the shore which was most favourable for allowing her to be
forced up on the beach. At eleven o'clock, the piece of a floe
which came near us in the afternoon, and which had since drifted
back a few hundred yards to the eastward, received the pressure of
the whole body of ice as it came in. It split across in various
directions with a considerable crash, and presently after we saw a
part, several hundred tons in weight, raised slowly and
majestically, as if by the application of a screw, and deposited
on another part of the floe from which it had broken, presenting
towards us the surface that had split, which was of a fine blue
colour, and very solid and transparent. The violence with which
the ice was coming in being thus broken, it remained quiet during
the night, which was calm, with a heavy fall of snow.
The mass of ice which had been lifted up the preceding day being
drifted close to us on the morning of the 10th, I sent Lieutenant
Beechey to measure its thickness, which proved to be forty-two
feet; and as it was a piece of a regular floe, this measurement
may serve to give some idea of the general thickness of the ice in
this neighbourhood.
I began to consider whether it would not be advisable, whenever
the ice would allow us to move, to sacrifice a few miles of the
westing we had already made, and to run along the margin of the
floes, in order to endeavour to find an opening leading to the
southward, by taking advantage of which we might be enabled to
prosecute the voyage to the westward in a lower latitude. I was
the more inclined to make this attempt, from its having long
become evident to us that the navigation of this part of the Polar
Sea is only to be performed by watching the occasional openings
between the ice and the shore; and that, therefore, a continuity
of land is essential, if not absolutely necessary, for this
purpose. Such a continuity of land, which was here about to fail
us, must necessarily be furnished by the northern coast of
America, in whatsoever latitude it may be found; and, as a large
portion of our short season had already been occupied in fruitless
attempts to penetrate farther to the westward in our present
parallel, under circumstances of more than ordinary risk to the
ships, I determined, whenever the ice should open sufficiently, to
put into execution the plan I had proposed.
At seven P.M. we shipped the rudder and crossed the top-gallant
yards in readiness for moving; and then I ascended the hill and
walked a mile to the westward, along the brow of it, that not a
moment might be lost after the ice to the westward should give us
the slightest hope of making any progress by getting under way.
Although the holes had certainly increased in size and extent,
there was still not sufficient room even for one of our boats to
work to windward; and the impossibility of the ships' doing so was
rendered more apparent, on account of the current which, as I have
before had occasion to remark, is always produced in these seas
soon after the springing up of a breeze, and which was now running
to the eastward at the rate of at least one mile per hour. It was
evident that any attempt to get the ships to the westward must,
under circumstances so unfavourable, be attended with the certain
consequence of their being drifted the contrary way; and nothing
could therefore be done but still to watch, which we did most
anxiously, every alteration in the state of the ice. The wind,
however, decreasing as the night came on, served to diminish the
hopes with which we had flattered ourselves of being speedily
extricated from our present confined and dangerous situation.
The weather was foggy for some hours in the morning of the 11th,
but cleared up in the afternoon as the sun acquired power. The
wind increased to a fresh gale from the eastward at nine P.M.,
being the second time that it had done so while we had been lying
at this station; a circumstance which we were the more inclined to
notice, as the easterly winds had hitherto been more faint and
less frequent than those from the westward. In this respect,
therefore, we considered ourselves unfortunate, as experience had
already shown us that none but a westerly wind ever produced upon
this coast, or, indeed, on the southern coast of any of the North
Georgian Islands, the desired effect of clearing the shores of
ice.
The gale continued strong during the night, and the ice quite
stationary. Not a pool of clear water could be seen in any
direction, except just under the lee of our point, where there was
a space large enough to contain half a dozen sail of ships, till
about noon, when the whole closed in upon us without any apparent
cause, except that the wind blew in irregular puffs about that
time, and at one P.M. it was alongside. The ship was placed in the
most advantageous manner for taking the beach, or, rather, the
shelf of submarine ice, and the rudder again unshipped and hung
across the stem. The ice which came in contact with the ship's
side consisted of very heavy loose pieces, drawing twelve or
fourteen feet water, which, however, we considered as good
"fenders," compared with the enormous fields which covered the sea
just without them. Everything remained quiet for the rest of the
day, without producing any pressure of consequence; the wind came
round to N.b.E. at night, but without moving the ice off the land.
Early in the morning of the 13th I received by Mr. Griffiths a
message from Lieutenant Liddon, acquainting me that, at eleven
o'clock on the preceding night, the ice had been setting slowly to
the westward, and had, at the same time, closed in upon the land
where the Griper was lying, by which means she was forced against
the submarine ice, and her stern lifted two feet out of the water.
This pressure, Lieutenant Liddon remarked, had given her a twist,
which made her crack a good deal, but apparently without suffering
any material injury in her hull, though the ice was still pressing
upon her when Mr. Griffiths came away. She had at first heeled
inward, but, on being lifted higher, fell over towards the deep
water. Under these circumstances Lieutenant Liddon had very
properly landed all the journals and other documents of
importance, and made every arrangement in his power for saving the
provisions and stores in case of shipwreck, which he had now every
reason to anticipate. Convinced as I was that no human art or
power could, in our present situation, prevent such a catastrophe
whenever the pressure of the ice became sufficient, I was more
than ever satisfied with the determination to which I had
previously come, of keeping the ships apart during the continuance
of these untoward circumstances, in order to increase the chance
of saving one of them from accidents of this nature. In the mean
time the ice remained so close about the Hecla, that the slightest
pressure producing in it a motion towards the shore must have
placed us in a situation similar to that of the Griper; and our
attention was therefore diverted to the more important object of
providing, by every means in our power, for the security of the
larger ship, as being the principal depôt of provisions and other
resources.
At five P.M. Lieutenant Liddon acquainted me by letter that the
Griper had at length righted, the ice having slackened a little
around her, and that all the damage she appeared to have sustained
was in her rudder, which was badly split, and would require some
hours' labour to repair it whenever the ice should allow him to
get it on shore.
Soon after midnight the ice pressed closer in upon the Hecla than
before, giving her a heel of eighteen inches towards the shore,
but without appearing to strain her in the slightest degree. By
four P.M. the pressure had gradually decreased, and the ship had
only three or four inches heel; in an hour after she had perfectly
righted, and the ice remained quiet for the rest of the day.
Every moment's additional detention now served to confirm me in
the opinion I had formed as to the expediency of trying, at all
risks, to penetrate to the southward whenever the ice would allow
us to move at all, rather than persevere any longer in the
attempts we had been lately making, with so little success, to
push on directly to the westward. I therefore gave Lieutenant
Liddon an order to run back a certain distance to the eastward
whenever he could do so, without waiting for the Hecla, should
that ship be still detained; and to look out for any opening in
the ice to the southward which might seem likely to favour the
object I had in view, waiting for me to join him should any such
opening occur.
The breeze died away in the course of the night, just as the ice
was beginning to separate and to drift away from the shore; and,
being succeeded by a wind off the land, which is here very
unusual, Lieutenant Liddon was enabled to sail upon the Griper at
two A.M. on the 15th, in execution of the orders I had given him.
As I soon perceived, however, that she made little or no way, the
wind drawing more to the eastward on that part of the coast, and
as the clear water was increasing along the shore to the westward
much farther than we had yet seen it, I made the signal of recall
to the Griper, with the intention of making another attempt, which
the present favourable appearances seemed to justify, to push
forward without delay in the desired direction. At five A.M.,
therefore, as soon as the snow had cleared away sufficiently to
allow the signal to be distinguished, we cast off and ran along
shore, the wind having by this time veered to the E.b.N., and
blowing in strong puffs out of the ravines as we passed them. We
sailed along, generally at the distance of a hundred or a hundred
and fifty yards from the beach, our soundings being from ten to
seventeen fathoms; and, after running a mile and a half in a
N.W.b.W. direction, once more found the ice offering an
impenetrable obstacle to our progress westward, at a small
projecting point of land just beyond us. We therefore hauled the
ship into a berth which we were at this moment fortunate in
finding abreast of us, and where we were enabled to place the
Hecla within a number of heavy masses of grounded ice, such as do
not often occur on this steep coast, which, compared with the
situation we had lately left, appeared a perfect harbour. In the
mean time, the wind had failed our consort when she was a mile and
a half short of this place; and Lieutenant Liddon, after
endeavouring in vain to warp up to us, was obliged, by the ice
suddenly closing upon him, to place her in-shore, in the first
situation he could find, which proved to be in very deep water, as
well as otherwise so insecure as not to admit a hope of saving the
ship should the ice continue to press upon her.
Mr. Fisher found very good sport in our new station, having
returned in the evening, after a few hours' excursion, with nine
hares; the birds had, of late, almost entirely deserted us, a
flock or two of ptarmigan and snow-buntings, a few glaucous gulls,
a raven, and an owl, being all that had been met with for several
days.
A fog, which had prevailed during the night, cleared away in the
morning of the 16th, and a very fine day succeeded, with a
moderate breeze from the westward. In order to have a clear and
distinct view of the state of the ice, after twenty-four hours'
wind from that quarter, Captain Sabine, Mr. Edwards, and myself,
walked about two miles to the westward, along the high part of the
land next the sea, from whence it appeared but too evident that no
passage in this direction was yet to be expected. The ice to the
west and southwest was as solid and compact, to all appearance, as
so much land; to which, indeed, the surface of so many fields,
from the kind of hill and dale I have before endeavoured to
describe, bore no imperfect resemblance. I have no doubt that, had
it been our object to circumnavigate Melville Island, or, on the
other hand, had the coast continued its westerly direction instead
of turning to the northward, we should still have contrived to
proceed a little occasionally, as opportunities offered,
notwithstanding the increased obstruction which here presented
itself; but, as neither of these was the case, there seemed little
or nothing to hope for from any farther attempts to prosecute the
main object of the voyage in this place. I determined, therefore,
no longer to delay the execution of my former intentions, and to
make trial, if possible, of a more southern latitude, in which I
might follow up the success that had hitherto attended our
exertions.
The station at which the ships were now lying, and which is the
westernmost point to which the navigation of the Polar Sea to the
northward of the American Continent has yet been carried, is in
latitude 74° 26' 25", and longitude, by chronometer, 113° 46'
43.5".
The place where the Hecla was now secured, being the only one of
the kind which could be found, was a little harbour, formed, as
usual, by the grounded ice, some of which was fixed to the bottom
in ten to twelve fathoms. One side of the entrance to this harbour
consisted of masses of floes, very regular in their shape, placed
quite horizontally, and broken off so exactly perpendicular as to
resemble a handsome, well-built wharf. On the opposite side,
however, the masses to which we looked for security were
themselves rather terrific objects, as they leaned over so much
towards the ship as to give the appearance of their being in the
act of falling upon her deck; and as a very trifling concussion
often produces the fall of much heavier masses of ice, when in
appearance very firmly fixed to the ground, I gave orders that no
guns should be fired near the ship during her continuance in this
situation. The Griper was of necessity made fast near the beach in
rather an exposed situation, and her rudder unshipped, in
readiness for the ice coming in; it remained quiet, however,
though quite close, during the day, the weather being calm and
fine.
It was again nearly calm on the 19th, and the weather was foggy for
some hours in the morning. In the evening, having walked to Cape
Providence to see if there was any possibility of moving the ships,
I found the ice so close that a boat could not have passed beyond
the Cape; but a light air drifting the ice slowly to the eastward
at this time, gave me some hopes of soon being enabled to make our
escape from this tedious as well as vexatious confinement. At a
quarter past eight it was high water by the shore; about this time
the ice ceased driving to the eastward, and shortly after returned
in the opposite direction.
At half past eleven P.M., some heavy pieces of the grounded ice,
to which our bow-hawser was secured, fell off into the water,
snapping the rope in two without injuring the ship. As, however,
every alteration of this kind must materially change the centre of
gravity of the whole mass, which already appeared in a tottering
state, I thought it prudent to move the Hecla out of her harbour
to the place where the Griper was lying, considering that a ship
might easily be forced on shore by the ice without suffering any
serious damage; but that one of those enormous masses falling upon
her deck must inevitably crush or sink her.
The "young ice" had increased to the thickness of an inch and a
half on the morning of the 23d, and some snow which had fallen in
the night served to cement the whole more firmly together. On a
breeze springing up from the westward, however, it soon began to
acquire a motion to leeward, and at half an hour before noon had
slackened about the ships sufficiently to allow us to warp them
out, which was accordingly done, and all sail made upon them. The
wind having freshened up from the W.N.W., the ships' heads were
got the right way, and, by great attention to the sails, kept so
till they had got abreast of Cape Providence, after which they
were no longer manageable, the ice being more close than before. I
have before remarked that the loose ice in this neighbourhood was
heavy in proportion to the floes from which it had been broken;
and the impossibility of sailing among such ice, most of which
drew more water than the Hecla, and could not, therefore, be
turned by her weight, was this day rendered very apparent, the
ships having received by far the heaviest shocks which they
experienced during the voyage. They continued, however, to drive
till they were about three miles to the eastward of Cape
Providence, where the low land commences; when, finding that there
was not any appearance of open water to the eastward or southward,
and that we were now incurring the risk of being beset at sea,
without a chance of making any farther progress, we hauled in for
the largest piece of grounded ice we could see upon the beach,
which we reached at six P.M., having performed six miles of the
most difficult navigation I have ever known among ice. The Hecla
was made fast in from eighteen to twenty feet water close to the
beach, and the Griper in four fathoms, about half a mile to the
westward of us.
The situation in which the ships were now placed, when viewed in
combination with the shortness of the remaining part of the
season, and the period to which our resources of every kind could
be extended, was such as to require a more than ordinary
consideration, in order to determine upon the measures most proper
to be pursued for the advancement of the public service, and the
security of the ships and people committed to my charge. Judging
from the close of the summer of 1819, it was reasonable to
consider the 7th of September as the limit beyond which the
navigation of this part of the Polar Sea could not be performed,
with tolerable safety to the ships or with any hope of farther
success. Impressed, however, with a strong sense of the efforts
which it became us to make in the prosecution of our enterprise, I
was induced to extend this limit to the 14th of September, before
which day, on the preceding year, the winter might fairly be said
to have set in. But even with this extension our prospect was not
very encouraging: the direct distance to Icy Cape was between
eight and nine hundred miles, while that which we had advanced
towards it this season fell short of sixty miles.
By Mr. Hooper's report of the remains of provisions, it appeared
that, at the present reduced allowance (namely, two thirds of the
established proportion of the navy), they would last until the
30th of November, 1821; and that an immediate reduction, to half
allowance, which must, however, tend materially to impair the
health and vigour of the officers and men, would only extend our
resources to the 30th of April, 1822; it therefore became a matter
of evident and imperious necessity, that the ships should be
cleared from the ice before the close of the season of 1821, so as
to reach some station where supplies might be obtained by the end
of that, or early in the following year.
By the same report, it appeared that the fuel with which we were
furnished could only be made to extend to a period of two years
and seven months, or to the end of November, 1821; and this only
by resorting to the unhealthy measure of both crews living on
board the Hecla during six of the ensuing winter months.
The ships might be considered almost as effective as when the
expedition left England; the wear and tear having been trifling,
and the quantity of stores remaining on board being amply
sufficient, in all probability, for a much longer period than the
provisions and fuel. The health of the officers and men continued
also as good, or nearly so, as at the commencement of the voyage.
Considering, however, the serious loss we had sustained in the
lemon-juice, the only effectual antiscorbutic on which we could
depend during at least nine months of the year in these regions,
as well as the effects likely to result from crowding nearly one
hundred persons into the accommodation intended only for
fifty-eight, whereby the difficulty of keeping the inhabited parts
of the ship in a dry and wholesome state would have been so much
increased, there certainly seemed some reason to apprehend that a
second winter would not leave us in possession of the same
excellent health which we now happily enjoyed, while it is
possible that the difficulty and danger of either proceeding or
returning might have been increased.
A herd of musk-oxen being seen at a little distance from the
ships, a party was despatched in pursuit; and Messrs. Fisher and
Bushnan were fortunate in killing a fine bull, which separated
from the rest of the herd, being too unwieldy to make such good
way as the others. He was, however, by no means caught by our
people in fair chase; for, though these animals run with a
hobbling sort of canter, that makes them appear as if every now
and then about to fall, yet the slowest of them can far outstrip a
man. In this herd were two calves, much whiter than the rest, the
older ones having only the white saddle. In the evening, Sergeant
Martin succeeded in killing another bull; these two animals
afforded a very welcome supply of fresh meat, the first giving us
three hundred and sixty-nine, and the other three hundred and
fifty-two pounds of beef, which was served in the same manner as
before.[*]
[Footnote: The total quantity of game obtained for the use of the
expedition during our stay upon the shores of Melville Island,
being a period of nearly twelve months, was as follows: 3 musk
oxen, 24 deer, 68 hares, 53 geese, 59 ducks, 144 ptarmigans:
affording 3766 pounds of meat.]
It was gratifying to me to find that the officers unanimously
agreed with me in opinion that any farther attempt to penetrate to
the westward in our present parallel would be altogether
fruitless, and attended with a considerable loss of time, which
might be more usefully employed. They also agreed with me in
thinking that the plan which I had adopted, of running back along
the edge of the ice to the eastward, in order to look out for an
opening that might lead us towards the American Continent, was in
every respect the most advisable; and that, in the event of
failing to find any such opening after a reasonable time spent in
search, it would be expedient to return to England rather than
risk the passing another winter in these seas, without the
prospect of attaining any adequate object; namely, that of being
able to start from an advanced station at the commencement of the
following season.
At three P.M. we were abreast of Cape Hearne; and, as we opened
the bay of the Hecla and Griper, the wind, as usual on this part
of the coast, came directly out from the northward; but, as soon
as we had stretched over to Bounty Cape, of which we were abreast
at eight P.M., it drew once more along the land from the westward.
The distance between the ice and the land increased as we
proceeded, and at midnight the channel appeared to be four or five
miles wide, as far as the darkness of the night would allow of our
judging; for we could at this period scarcely see to read in the
cabin at ten o'clock. The snow which fell during the day was
observed, for the first time, to remain upon the land without
dissolving; thus affording a proof of the temperature of the
earth's surface having again fallen below that of freezing, and
giving notice of the near approach of another long and dreary
winter.
At seven P.M., a fog coming on, we hauled up close to the edge of
the ice, both as a guide to us in sailing during the continuance
of the thick weather, and to avoid passing any opening that might
occur in it to the southward. We were, in the course of the
evening, within four or five miles of the same spot where we had
been on the same day and at the same hour the preceding year; and,
by a coincidence perhaps still more remarkable, we were here once
more reduced to the same necessity as before, of steering the
ships by one another for an hour or two; the Griper keeping the
Hecla ahead, and our quartermaster being directed to keep the
Griper right astern, for want of some better mode of knowing in
what direction we were running. The fog froze hard as it fell upon
the rigging, making it difficult to handle the ropes in working
the ship, and the night was rather dark for three or four hours.
At a quarter past three on the morning of the 30th, we bore up to
the eastward, the wind continuing fresh directly down Barrow's
Strait, except just after passing Prince Leopold's Islands, where
it drew into Prince Regent's Inlet, and, as soon as we had passed
this, again assumed its former westerly direction; affording a
remarkable instance of the manner in which the wind is acted upon
by the particular position of the land, even at a considerable
distance from it. The islands were encumbered with ice to the
distance of four or five miles all found them, but the Strait was
generally as clear and navigable as any part of the Atlantic.
Having now traced the ice the whole way from the longitude of 114°
to that of 90°, without discovering any opening to encourage a
hope of penetrating it to the southward, I could not entertain the
slightest doubt that there no longer remained a possibility of
effecting our object with the present resources of the expedition;
and that it was therefore my duty to return to England with the
account of our late proceedings, that no time might be lost in
following up the success with which we had been favoured, should
his majesty's government consider it expedient to do so. Having
informed the officers and men in both ships of my intentions, I
directed the full allowance of provisions to be in future issued,
with such a proportion of fuel as might contribute to their
comfort; a luxury which, on account of the necessity that existed
for the strictest economy in this article, it must be confessed,
we had not often enjoyed since we entered Sir James Lancaster's
Sound. We had been on two thirds allowance of bread between ten
and eleven months, and on the same reduced proportion of the other
species of provisions between three and four; and, although this
quantity is scarcely enough for working men for any length of
time, I believe the reduction of fuel was generally considered by
far the greater privation of the two.
As it appeared to me that considerable service might be rendered
by a general survey of the western coast of Baffin's Bay, which,
from Sir James Lancaster's Sound southward, might one day become
an important station for our whalers, I determined to keep as
close to that shore during our passage down as the ice and the
wind would permit; and as the experience of the former voyage had
led us to suppose that this coast would be almost clear of ice
during the whole of September, I thought that this month could not
be better employed than in the examination of its numerous bays
and inlets. Such an examination appeared to me more desirable,
from the hope of finding some new outlet into the Polar Sea in a
lower latitude than that of Sir James Lancaster's Sound; a
discovery which would be of infinite importance towards the
accomplishment of the Northwest Passage.