Page:The American encyclopedia of history, biography and travel (IA americanencyclop00blak).pdf/910

 and a half, which they traversed between one and eleven P. M. The morning of the first of September brought a breeze, and with it a snow storm, so that they were unable to shape their course that afternoon. At one on the 2d, a star was seen, the first that had been visible for more than two months. The fog came on again, and there was not wind enough to enable them to keep the ships under command. On the morning of the 3d, a northern breeze enabled them to make considerable progress, and on the 4th, at nine P. M., they crossed the meridian of 110 deg. west from Greenwich, latitude 74 deg. 44 min. 20 sec., by which the ship's company became entitled to a reward of 5000 pounds, offered by the king's order in council 'to such British subjects as might penetrate so far west within the Arctic circle.' On the 5th, they found the passage blocked up again, and as no change seemed likely to take place, they came to anchor in a tolerable roadstead, a mile and a half from the northern shore. In the evening, Captain Sabine and some of the other officers landed on an island, to which they gave the name of Melville Island. Here they saw several flocks of ducks and gulls; tracks of the deer and musk ox were also observed, and some addition made by the gentlemen to their collection of marine insects. The bay of the Hecla and Griper, as they called the roadstead where the ships lay, was the first place in which they had dropped anchor since leaving England. The flags were hoisted in honor of the epoch; the first time that the eye of civilized man had looked on that barren and inhospitable region. In the afternoon the ice was observed to be in motion; and the ship got under way and sailed a short distance. But finding no opening, the ships were secured to a floe, which it was necessary to do every night, the weather being too dark to allow them to keep under way. Captain Parry, fearing that the floes might change their position, determined to remove nearer the shore. Two large masses lay aground, and the vessels were secured between them and the shore. Parties went out and returned with a white hare, some fine ptarmigans, a few snow-buntings, skulls of the musk ox, and several reindeer's horns; but they were unable to meet with either of the two latter animals. Several lumps of coal were also picked up, and were found to burn with a clear lively flame, like canalcoal, but without splitting and crackling in the same manner. At five A. M., on the 10th, a floe ran against the berg, within which the Hecla was secured and turned it round as on a pivot.

They were now so surrounded with ice, that all they could do was to attend carefully to the safety of the ships. On the 11th, one of the officers killed the first musk ox they had yet been able to approach.

The packed ice remained immovable, and the 'young ice' rapidly forming, farther progress was considered impracticable that season. Captain Parry thought it best to run back to the bay of Hecla and Griper and to pass the winter there. The signal for weighing anchor was given on the 22d, but the cables had become so stiff with frost, that it was five P. M. before the anchors were brought on board; and they did not reach the anchorage till the evening of the next day. A proper place being found, the ships dropped anchor on the edge of the bay of ice, in the evening of the 24th; and on the next day, they commenced cutting a canal. Two parallel lines were marked out a little more than the breadth of the ships apart; along these lines, a cut was then made with an ice saw, and others again at right-angles with them, at intervals of from ten to twenty feet.