o perceptible check could be observed, nor even any alteration in
the velocity with which the line ran out. In hauling it in again,
however, which occupied both ships' companies above an hour and a
half, we found such a quantity of the line covered with mud as to
prove that the whole depth of water was only eight hundred and
nine fathoms, the rest of the line having continued to run out by
its own weight, after the instrument had struck the ground. I have
before had occasion to remark that, on this account, it is not
easy to ascertain the actual depth of the sea in the usual manner
when it exceeds five or six hundred fathoms.

The ships were secured to a berg at six P.M. of the 18th, and the
wind having freshened up to a gale from the N.W.b.N., with some
swell, we were much annoyed during the night by the ice which
drifted under the lee of it, and on which the ships were
constantly striking with a heavy shock, such as no others could
have long withstood. This danger is avoided by ships lying very
close under the lee of a berg, but a much greater is thereby
incurred from the risk of the berg's upsetting; a circumstance
which is always to be apprehended in a swell, and which must be
attended with certain destruction to a ship moored very near to
it.

On the 24th and 25th we continued our progress to the southward,
but without any success in approaching, or even getting sight of,
the land; the ice being as close and compact as when we sailed
along the margin of it in July of the preceding year. Soon after
noon on the 24th we crossed the Arctic Circle, having been within
it fourteen months and three weeks.

On the morning of the 26th we again stood to the westward as much
as the ice would allow, but were soon obliged by it to keep away
to the southward, precluding every hope of making the land on that
part of the coast which it would have been most interesting to
explore. In the afternoon, after various attempts to get to the
westward, appearances became more unpromising than ever, the
packed ice extending from N.b.E. round to S.W. There were, indeed,
parts of the ice which, with constant daylight, a ship might have
entered with some probability of success; but, with twelve hours'
night, the attempt must have been attended with a degree of risk
which nothing but a very important object could justify. The wind
had now freshened up from the N.N.W., and the mercury in the
barometer fell with unusual rapidity, with every o