therefore reason to conclude that the damage would
altogether prove very serious. We also discovered that several feet of
the Hecla's false keel were torn away abreast of the fore chains, in
consequence of her grounding forward so frequently.

'The ships being now as well secured as our means permitted from the
immediate danger of ice, the clearing of the Fury went on with
increased confidence, though greater alacrity was impossible, for
nothing could exceed the spirit and zealous activity of every
individual, and as things had turned out, the ice had not obliged us
to wait a moment except at the actual times of its pressure. Being
favoured with fine weather, we continued our work very quickly, so
that on the 12th every cask was landed, and also the powder; and the
spare sails and clothing put on board the Hecla.

'On the 13th, we found that a mass of heavy ice which had been aground
with the Fury, had now floated alongside of her at high water, still
further contracting her already narrow basin, and leaving the ship no
room for turning round. At the next high water, therefore, we got a
purchase on it, and hove it out of the way, so that at night it
drifted off altogether.

'The coals and preserved meats were the principal things now remaining
on board the Fury, and these we continued landing by every method we
could devise as the most expeditious. The tide rose so considerably at
night, new moon occurring within an hour of high water, that we were
much afraid of our bergs floating; they remained firm, however, even
though the ice came in with so much force as to break one of our
hand-masts, a fir spar of twelve inches in diameter. As the high
tides, and the lightening of the Fury, now gave us sufficient depth
of water for unshipping the rudders, we did so, and laid them upon the
small berg astern of us, for fear of their being damaged by any
pressure of the ice.

'Early on the morning of the 14th, the ice slackening a little in our
neighbourhood, we took advantage of it, though the people were much
fagged, to tighten the cables, which had stretched and yielded
considerably by the late pressure. It was well that we did so, for in
the course of this day we were several times interrupted in our work
by the ice coming with a tremendous strain on the north cables, the
wind blowing strong from the N.N.W., and the whole 'pack' outside of
us setting rapidly to the southward. Indeed, notwithstanding the
recent tightening a