d move.

On this last plan the duty was commenced, very little interrupted by the
weather. For quite three weeks the wind held from points favourable to the
progress of spring, veering from east to west, but not once getting any
southing in it. Occasionally it blew in gales, sending down upon the group
a swell that made great havoc with the outer edges of the field-ice. Every
day or two a couple of hands were sent up the mountain to take a look-out,
and to report the state of matters in the adjacent seas. The fleet of
bergs had not yet come out of port, though it was in motion to the
southward, like three-deckers dropping down to outer anchorages, in
roadsteads and bays. As Roswell intended to be off before these formidable
cruisers put to sea, their smallest movement or change was watched and
noted. As for the field-ice, it was broken up, miles at at a time, until
there remained very little of it, with the exception of the portion that
was wedged in and jammed among the islands of the group. From some cause
that could not be ascertained, the waves of the ocean, which came tumbling
in before the northern gales, failed to roll home upon this ice, which
lost its margin, now it was reduced to the limits of the group, slowly and
with great resistance. Some of the sealers ascribed this obstinacy in the
bay-ice to its greater thickness; believing that the shallowness of the
water had favoured a frozen formation below, that did not so much prevail
off soundings. This theory may have been true, though there was quite as
much against it, as in its favour, for polar ice usually increases above
and not from below. The sea is much warmer than the atmosphere, in the
cold months, and the ice is made by deposites of snow, moisture and sleet,
on the surfaces of the fields and bergs.

In those three weeks, which carried forward the season to within ten days
of summer, a great deal of useful work was done. Daggett was brought over
to the house, on a handbarrow, for the second time, and made as
comfortable as circumstances would allow. From the first, Roswell saw that
his state was very precarious, the frozen legs, in particular, being
threatened with mortification. All the expedients known to a sealer's
_materia medico_, were resorted to, in order to avert consequences so
serious, but without success. The circulation could not be restored, as
nature required it to be done, and, failing of the support derived from a
healthful condition of