ed it. The month of July is, indeed, the
only one which can be called at all comfortable in the climate of
Melville Island.

On the 20th, there being a strong breeze from the N.N.E., with fog
and rain, all favourable to the dispersion of the ice, that part
of it which was immediately around the Hecla, and from which she
had been artificially detached so long before, at length separated
into pieces and floated away, carrying with it the collection of
ashes and other rubbish which had been accumulating for the last
ten months: so that the ship was now once more fairly riding at
anchor, but with the ice still occupying the whole of the centre
of the harbour, and within a few yards of her bows: the Griper had
been set free in a similar manner a few days before. But it was
only in that part of the harbour where the ships were lying that
the ice had yet separated in this manner at so great a distance
from the shore; a circumstance probably occasioned by the greater
radiation of heat from the ships, and from the materials of
various kinds which we had occasion to deposite upon the ice
during the time of our equipment.

Lieutenant Liddon accompanied me in a boat down the west shore of
the harbour to the southern point of the entrance, in order to
sound along the edge of the ice, where we found from seven to
fifteen feet water; the ice about the entrance appeared still very
solid and compact, and not a single hole was at this time noticed
through any of the pools upon its surface except one, which was
made by a seal, and which discovered the thickness of the ice to
be there between two and three feet.

There was a fresh breeze from the northeastward, with fine clear
weather, on the 22d, which made the Hecla swing round into twenty
feet water astern; and the ice, being now moveable in the harbour,
came home towards the shore with this wind, but not so much as to
put any considerable strain on the cable of either ship; and the
holding-ground being excellent, there was nothing to apprehend for
their security.

A fresh gale, which blew from the northward on the morning of the
23d, caused a great alteration in the appearance of the ice near
the ships, but none whatever in that in the offing or at the mouth
of the harbour, except that the shores were there more encumbered
than before, owing to the quantity of pieces which were separated
and driven down from the northward, so that our small boat could
not succeed in getting alon