Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

times three, journeys with our loads. We now found it absolutely necessary to lighten the boats as much as possible, by putting the bread-bags on the sledges, on account of the 'runners' of the boats sinking so much deeper into the snow; but our bread ran a great risk of being wetted by this plan.

[blocks in formation]

"We had seen, in the course of our last journey, a few rotges, a loom, an ivory-gull, a mallemucke, and a tern (Sterna arctica).

"We here observed the dip of the magnetic needle to be 82° 4'7, and the variation to be 13° 16′ westerly; the latitude being 81° 45′ 15′′, and the longitude, by chronometers, 24° 23′ East, by which we found that we had been drifted considerably to the eastward. In this situation we tried for soundings with four hundred fathoms of line, without reaching the bottom; the temperature at that depth, by Six's thermometer, was 30°, that at the surface, at the time, being 3210, and of the air 34°.

*

"The rain of the 11th, which was very unusually heavy, ceased soon after we had halted, but was succeeded by a thick, wet fog, which obliged us, when we continued our journey, to put on our travelling

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

313

clothes in the same dripping state as when we took them off. The wind continued fresh from the southeastward, and at nine P.M. the weather suddenly cleared up, and gave us once more the inconceivably

cheering, I had almost said the blessed sight of a blue sky, with hard well-defined white clouds floating across it. There was not, however, much dryness in the atmosphere, the dew point, by Daniell's hygrometer, being 35° at nine P.M., when the temperature of the atmosphere was the same. We considered ourselves fortunate in having any floes to cross, though only one or two exceeded a quarter of a mile in length, and all very rugged and much covered with ponds of water; but this was better than the more frequent and hazardous launching among small pieces.

"Again halting at midnight to dine, we obtained the sun's altitude, which placed us in latitude 82° 11′ 51′′. On continuing our journey, after dinner, we still had small floe-pieces to pass over, several of which gave us much labour, and occupied considerable time, being just too widely separated to make bridges of the boats, so that launching them was unavoidable. We halted at six A.M., after making, by our day's exertions, only three miles and a half of northing, and then obtained the dip of the magnetic needle, 82° 16' 3, and the variation 15° 6' westerly, our latitude

at this time being 82° 14′ 28′′, and our longitude by chronometers 22° 4′ E.

"On the 15th, in proceeding over the floe, on which we had slept, we found it alternately level and 'hummocky,' the former affording sufficiently good travelling to allow us to carry all our baggage at one journey with great ease, one boat's crew occasionally assisting the other for a few yards together; but the hummocks cost us immense labour, nothing but a "bowline haul" being sufficient, with all our hands, to get the boats across or between them. At eight the rain again became heavier, and we got under shelter of our awnings for a quarter of an hour, to keep our shirts and other flannel clothes dry; these being the only things we now had on which were not thoroughly wet. At nine we did the same, but before ten were obliged to halt altogether, the rain coming down in torrents, and the men being much exhausted by continued wet and cold, though the thermometer was at 36°, which was somewhat above our usual tempera

ture.

"The wind shifted to the W.S.W. in the afternoon, and the rain was succeeded by a thick fog, after it had been falling for thirty hours out of the last thirty-one. At half-past seven P.M. we again pursued our journey,

STOUT-BUILT BOATS.

315

and after much laborious travelling, were fortunate, considering the fog, in hitting upon a floe which proved the longest we had yet crossed, being three miles from south to north, though alternately rugged and flat. From this we launched into a lane of water half a mile long from east to west, but which only gave us a hundred and fifty yards of northing. We had then several other small pools to cross, and on one occasion were obliged to cut a place for hauling up the boats, the margin consisting of a tier of high and continuous hummocks. In hauling one of the boats over a 'tongue' of ice, where she only floated in part, her bottom-boards were raised by the pressure against the ice below, but so strong and elastic was their construction that she did not suffer the slightest external injury. We frequently, during fogs, saw a broad white fog-bow opposite the sun; but one which appeared to-night was strongly tinged with the prismatic colours.

"The floe on which we stopped to dine at one A.M., on the 16th, was not more than four feet thick, and its extent half a mile square; and on this we had the rare advantage of carrying all our loads at one journey. At half-past six the fog cleared away, and gave us beautiful weather for drying our clothes, and once more the cheerful sight of the blue sky. We

halted at half-past seven, after being twelve hours on the road, having made a N.b.W. course, distance only six miles and a quarter, though we had traversed nine miles. The thermometer was unusually high in the shade, having risen to 37°; in the sun it stood at 47°; a blackened bulb raised it to 51°; and the same thermometer, held against the black painted side of the boat, rose to 5940. This was during a calm: but almost the smallest breath of wind immediately reduced them all below 40°. We saw, during the last journey, a mallemucke and a second Ross gull; and a couple of small flies (to us an event of ridiculous importance) were found upon the ice. We here observed the variation of the magnetic needle to be 17° 28′ westerly, being in latitude, by observation, 82° 26′ 44′′ (or two miles to the southward of our reckoning), and in longitude, by chronometers, 20° 32′ 13" East.

"We were to-day almost unusually fortunate in meeting with some open water, one lane of which gave us, though by a very crooked course, a mile and a half of northing, besides other smaller ones. The sea-water, in one of the largest of these lanes, was at the temperature of 34°, being almost the only instance I remember of such an occurrence in a sea thus loaded

« AnteriorContinuar »