essary to enter
a second in order to release it, by sawing out a circular plug of
ice completely round it. Fatiguing as this work proved to the men,
I directed it to be continued to-day, the sea remaining so open on
the outside as to give every encouragement to our exertions.

One of our people, in walking over the island, met with a swan's
nest, which Captain Lyon went out to see, and made a drawing of
it. It was built of moss-peat, being no less than five feet ten
inches in length, four feet nine inches wide, and two feet deep.
The hole of entrance in the top was eighteen inches wide. Two
eggs, each weighing about eight ounces, were found in the nest, in
which the old birds were also sitting at first, but too wild to be
approached. The eggs are of a cream or brownish white colour, in
some parts a little clouded by a darker tinge. The female
subsequently laid a third egg, and soon afterward both birds
appeared to have wholly deserted the nest.

In the second week our progress with the canal had been
considerable, it being now completed within two hundred yards of
the Fury's stern.

At the conclusion of the day's labour on the 19th, we had every
prospect of getting to sea in forty-eight hours more; but, early
on the following morning, when the ebb or northeasterly tide had
made, and was assisted by a breeze from the southward, the whole
body of sea-ice came forcibly in contact with the bay-floe, which
was now so weakened by our cutting as to split the whole way from
the edge up to the Hecla's stern, a little to the westward of the
canal, the latter being almost immediately closed with a
considerable crush, but without affecting the ships which lay
beyond it. The closing of our artificial canal had the effect of
partially opening a natural one at the place where the ice had
just been detached; but, as this was incomplete, coming gradually
up to a point astern of the Hecla, we were at a loss to know on
which of the two our labour would best be employed. An attempt was
first made by four strong purchases, stretched from side to side
across the new crack, to pull the parts together again, and thus
to leave our original canal _in statu quo_. All our power,
however, being insufficient to accomplish this, we commenced with
the saws upon the upper part of the crack, with the intention of
widening it sufficiently for the passage of the ships. In this
work we had made considerable progress, when, towards evening, it
was per