This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 Excerpt: ... opened between the belt-ice and the floe. The weather continued dull and unfavorable for observations of any sort, and we were off1 a large glacier before we were aware that further progress near the shore was impracticable. Great chains of bergs presented themselves as barriers in our way, the spaces between choked ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 Excerpt: ... opened between the belt-ice and the floe. The weather continued dull and unfavorable for observations of any sort, and we were off1 a large glacier before we were aware that further progress near the shore was impracticable. Great chains of bergs presented themselves as barriers in our way, the spaces between choked by barricades of hummocks. It was hopeless to bore. We tried for sixteen hours together without finding a possibility of egress. The whole sea was rugged and broken in the extreme. I climbed one of the bergs to the height of about two hundred feet, and, looking well to the west, was satisfied that a lead which I saw there could be followed in the direction of Conical Rocks, and beyond toward Cape Dudley Digges. But, on conferring with Brooks and McGary, I was startled to find how much the boats had suffered in the rude encounters of the last few days. The "Hope" was in fact altogether unseaworthy: the ice had strained her bottom-timbers, and it required nearly all our wood to repair her; bit by bit we had already cut up and burned the runners and cross-bars of two sledges; the third we had to reserve as essential to our ice-crossings. In the mean time, the birds, which had been so abundant when we left Dalrymple's Island, and which we had counted on for a continuous store, seemed to have been driven off by the storm. We were again reduced to short daily rations of bread-dust, and I.was aware that the change of diet could not fail to tell upon the strength and energies of the party. I determined to keep in-shore, in spite of the barricades of ice, in the hope of renewing, to some extent at least, our supplies of game. We were fifty-two hours in forcing this rugged passage: a most painful labor, which but for the disciplined endurance o...
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