uddenly closed round them, and on the 25th
both were so completely beset that it was impossible to turn their heads
in any direction. Here they were fixed, though in no danger, until the
morning of the second day, when the violence of the sea loosening the
ice, it was driven against the ships' sides with such force that, had
they not been strongly built, they would probably have been destroyed.
At this time, from the crow's nest, upwards of eighty-eight enormous
icebergs were seen, besides many smaller ones. The vessels being at
length freed, Lieutenant Parry came to the resolution of abandoning the
attempt to reach Lancaster Sound by a direct course, and instead steered
northward along the border of the great ice-field, in the hopes of
finding open water farther to the north. He steered on that course
until he reached latitude 73 degrees, when he resolved upon making a
determined push to the westward.

A favourable breeze springing up, the ships stood on among the detached
floes, through which they were warped by securing ice-anchors with
hawsers to the more solid pieces ahead. Before they had made much
progress, a thick fog came on, which prevented the open lanes ahead
being seen. Still they continued to make way, sometimes dangerously
beset by masses of ice; yet by persevering efforts, they first got into
one lane, then into another, till, the fog clearing, they saw only one
long floe separating them from the open sea. The ice-saws were
therefore set to work, and with great labour cutting through the floe,
they had the satisfaction of seeing the shore clear of ice extending out
before them. They now steered for Lancaster Sound, and on the 30th of
July they gained its entrance. As they sailed on, under a press of
canvas, westward, the mast-heads were crowded by officers and men,
eagerly looking out to ascertain if the supposed mountain barrier lay
across their course.

The sound continued open, and it was calculated that the two shores were
still thirteen leagues apart, without the slightest appearance of land
to the westward.

Again and again a report was received from aloft that all was clear
ahead, and the explorers began to flatter themselves that they had
fairly entered the polar sea. Several headlands were passed, and wide
openings to the north and south. With a strong breeze from the
eastward, running on until midnight, they found themselves in latitude
83 degrees 12 minutes, nearly one hundred and