Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp4.djvu/352

 four different places. The latitude of the place of observation was 75° 9' 23", and the longitude, by chronometers, 103° 44' 37". The dip of the magnetic needle was 88° 25' 58", and the variation was now found to have changed from 128° 58' W., in the longitude of 91° 48', where our last observations on shore had been made, to 165° 50' 9" E., at our present station; so that we had, in sailing over the space included between those two meridians, crossed immediately to the northward of the magnetic pole, and had undoubtedly passed over one of those spots upon the globe, where the needle would have been found to vary 180°, or in other words, where its north pole would have pointed due south.

“The wind now became very light from the eastward, and the weather was 80 foggy that nothing; could be done during the night but to stand off. and-on, by the soundings, between the ice and the land; as we had no other means of knowing the direction in which we were sailing, than by the decrease in the depth of water on one tack, and by making the ice on the other. The fog froze hard upon the rigging, which always makes the working of the ship a very laborious task, the size of the running ropes being sometimes thus increased to three times the proper diameter. About 4 on the 29th, the fog partially cleared away for a little while, when we observed that the ice was more open off Cape Gillman, than when we had before attempted to pass in that direction. At 5 o’clock, therefore, wc made sail for the point, with a light easterly breeze; but at 7, when we had proceeded only two or three miles, the fog came on again as thick as before: fortunately, however, we had been enabled to take notice of several pieces of ice, by steering for each of which in succession we came to the edge of a ‘floe,’ along which our course was to be pursued to the westward. As long as we had this guidance, wc advanced with great confidence; but as soon as we came to the end of the ‘floe,’ which then turned off to the southward, the circumstances under which we were sailing were, perhaps, such as have never occurred since the early days of navigation. To the northward was the land; the ice, as we supposed, to the southward; the compasses useless; and the sun completely obscured by a fog, so thick that the Griper could only now and then be seen at a cable’s length astern. We had, literally, no mode of regulating our course but by once more trusting to the steadiness of the wind; and it was not a little amusing, as well as novel, to see the quarter-master conning the ship by looking at the dog-vane.

“On the 31st, we occasionally caught a glimpse of the land through the heavy fog-banks, with which the horizon was covered, which was sufficient to give us an idea of the true direction in which we ought to steer. Soon