tween Leopold Island and North Somerset,
there was evidently a pack; for an ice-blink, which moved daily about
in that direction, showed that the mass was acted upon by the winds;
and at last the southerly wind drove it up into Wellington Channel. To
be condemned to inactivity, with such a body of water close at hand,
was painful to all but those whose age and prudence seemed to justify
in congratulating themselves on being yet frozen in; and trying as had
been many disappointments we experienced in the Arctic regions, there
was none that pained us more than the ill luck which had consigned our
squadron, and its 180 men, to inactivity, in an icy prison under
Griffith's Island, whilst so much might have been done during the
thirty days that the waters of Barrow's Strait, and God only knows how
much more beside, were clear from ice in every shape, and seeming to
beckon us on to the north-westward.

It was now we felt the full evil result of our winter quarters. Boats
could not be despatched, I suppose, because the ships might at any time
in July have been swept by the ice whither it pleased, and the junction
of boats and ships rendered uncertain. Future expeditions will,
however, hit this nail on the head, and three distinct periods for
Arctic exploration will be found to exist, viz.:--The spring, from
April to June 25th, for foot journeys; from June 25th to the first week
in August, for boat expeditions; and then six weeks (for steam vessels)
of navigable season.

[Headnote: _BARROW'S STRAIT CLEAR OF ICE._]

Unable to remain with satisfaction away from our squadron, to be daily
tantalized with looking at a sea which might as well not have existed
for us, we returned to the "Pioneer," calling the attention of the
officers of Penny's squadron to the possibility of a vessel from
England, sent to communicate with the squadrons, actually running past
us all, and reaching Melville Island, mayhap, without detecting our
winter quarters; an opinion in which all seemed to concur; and a large
cairn was therefore afterwards erected upon the low land, in such a
position as to attract the attention of a craft bound westward.

On our return to the Naval squadron, we found them still seven miles
from the water to the southward from Griffith's Island. Towards the
westward, on the 25th of July, all was water, and a water sky. About
Somerville Island, and Brown Island, a patch of fixed ice, similar to
that we were in, connected itself