Adrift in the Arctic ice pack

"_August_ 19. The wind continued freshening, the aneroid falling two tenths in the night. About eight I was called by our master, with the news that a couple of vessels were fol...

ON the 27th, the chances of this narrow and capricious navigation had gathered five of the searching vessels, under three different commands, within the same quarter of a mile--...

"_AUGUST_ 28. Strange enough, during the night. Captain Austin, of her majesty's search squadron, with his flag-ship the _Resolute_, entered the same little indentation in which...

THE succeeding pages are very little else than a transcript from my journal. It would have been easy to condense them into a more attractive form; but they relate to the furthes...

THE region, which ten days before was teeming with animal life, was now almost deserted. We saw but one narwhal and a few seal. The Ivory gull too, a solitary traveler, occasion...

I AM reluctant to burden my pages with the wild, but scarcely varied incidents of our continued drift through Wellington Channel. We were yet to be familiarized with the strife...

THREE days after this entry the thermometer had fallen to 11° below zero. Our housings were not yet fixed, and we had no fires below; indeed, our position was so liable to momen...

WE remained during the rest of this month ice-cradled, and drifting about near the outlet of Wellington Channel. Occasionally a strong southerly wind would set us back again to...

"_NOVEMBER_ 22. I walked yesterday, and to-day again, to the open water that separates us from Wellington Channel. It is a bold and rapid river, as broad as the Delaware at Tren...

I EMPLOYED the dreary intervals of leisure that heralded our Christmas in tracing some Flemish portraitures of things about me. The scenes themselves had interest at the time fo...

"_DECEMBER_ 21, Saturday. To-day at noon we saw, dimly looming up from the redness of the southern horizon, a low range of hills; among them some cones of great height, mountain...

1851, _January_ 1, Wednesday. The first day of 1851 set in cold, the thermometer at -28°, and closing at -31°. We celebrated it by an extra dinner, a plumcake unfrosted for the...

WE had lost all indications of a shore, and had obviously passed within the influences of Baffin's Bay. We were on the meridian of 75°; yet, though the recent commotions could b...

ON the 2d of February the sun rose up in full disk at a quarter before eleven. The atmosphere was clear, but filled with minute spiculæ. The cold was becoming more intense: our...

OUR brig was still resting on her cradle, and her consort on the floe a short distance off, when the first month of spring came to greet us. We had passed the latitude of 72°.

"_MARCH_ 20. Thursday, the 20th of March, opens with a gale, a regular gale. On reaching deck after breakfast, I found the wind from the southeast, the thermometer at zero, and...

MY journal for the closing days of March and the early one of April is full of varying drifts and alternating temperatures. Still, it seemed as if, by some gradual though scarce...

"_APRIL_ 22. The past week has been one of dismantling, rubbish-creating, ship-cleaning torment. First, bull's-eyes were inserted in the deck; and the black felt housing, so com...

"ON the 11th, I was well enough, or imprudent enough, to attempt a seal hunt. Our mean temperature had sunk to 19° 5\ and the snow-crust was strong enough to bear. A gale had sw...

"THE storm broke in the early morning hours. We have drifted more than sixteen miles since Saturday. The true bearing of the prominent cape we supposed to be Cape Walsingham was...

"_JUNE_ 1. June opens on us warm. Our mean temperature to-day has been above the freezing point, 34°; our lowest only 29°; and at 11 this morning it rose to 40°. The snow-birds...

"_JUNE_ 6. Our bumping continued all I night, without any apparent effect I upon our sticking-plaster. Acting, as this impact does, at the long end of a lever, our stern being i...

WE continued our progress through a labyrinth of ice, sometimes running into a berg, or grazing against its edge so close as to carry away a spar or stave a quarter-boat, but st...

THE port of Pröven is securely sheltered by its monster hills. But they can not be said to smile a welcome upon the navigator. A smiling country, like a smiling face, needs some...