the frozen
element within the ice. The effect was to form a vast range of natural
galleries amid the cakes, that were quite clear of any snow but that which
had adhered to their surfaces, and which offered little or no impediment
to motion--nay, which rather aided it, by rendering the walking less
slippery. As the deck of the schooner had been cleared, leaving an easy
access to all its entrances, cabin, hold, and forecastle, this put the
Vineyard Lion under cover, while it admitted of all her accommodations
being used. A portion of her wood had been left in her, it will be
remembered, as well as her camboose. The last was got into the cabin, and
Daggett, attended by two or three of his hands, would pass a good deal of
his time there. One reason given for this distribution of the forces, was
the greater room it allowed those who remained at the hut for motion. The
deck of this vessel being quite clear, it offered a very favourable spot
for exercise; better, in fact, than the terrace beneath the hut, being
quite sheltered from the winds and much warmer than it had been
originally, or ever since the heavy fall of snows commenced. Daggett paced
his quarter-deck hour after hour, almost deluding himself with the
expectation of sailing for home as soon as the return of summer would
permit him to depart.

Around the hut the snow early made vast embankments. Every one accustomed
to the action of this particular condition of one of the great elements,
will understand that a bend in the rocks outward, or a curve inward, must
necessarily affect the manner in which these banks were formed. The wind
did not, by any means, blow from any one point of the compass; though the
south-western cliffs might be almost termed the weather-side of the
island, so much more frequently did the gales come from that quarter than
from any other. The cape where the cove lay, and where the house had been
set up, being at the north-eastern point, and much protected by the high
table-land in its rear, it occupied the warmest situation in the whole
region. The winds that swept most of the north shore, but which, owing to
a curvature in its formation, did not often blow home to the hut, even
when they whistled along the terrace only a hundred feet beneath and more
salient, were ordinarily from the south-west outside; though they got a
more westerly inclination by following the land under the cliffs.

A bank of snow may be either a cause of destruction or a