Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/318

288 the inclement and boisterous summer of 1837, and the success that then crowned our efforts in a higher latitude, with our present helpless position. That our exertions had even exceeded those of the previous year, the planks of the boats, torn and jagged by the ice, bore alarming proof. It would be difficult to depict our sorrow and disappointment at being thus arrested at the very threshold of our enterprise. Often did we walk along the coast, and climb the hills; but the prospect was still the same. At 1 in the morning of the 16th I first saw the stars; had the sky been clear, they would have been visible several days earlier.

On the 19th the sun set at 8 hrs. 30 min. mean time. The period appointed for the return of former expeditions was now arrived. Franklin's farthest encampment in 1821 was about three miles to the northward of us; but on the 16th of August, in that year, he found here a perfectly open sea. The extreme length and severity of the last winter must have had some share in producing so great a difference.

I may here mention that what appeared the natural run of the tides rarely exceeded one foot; but that, impelled by the westerly gales, the water rose twenty-one inches, and fell off again as soon as the wind shifted to the north.