AT PLOVER BAY AND ST. MICHAEL
arrived here and anchored to the ice near us. Getting everything in trim for the return voyage, having already taken all the [whale]-oil she can carry. All the fleet are doing well this year, or, as the natives express it, they are getting a "big grease."
[According to brief entries in Muir's journal the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of June were spent aboard the Corwin, writing personal letters and several communications to the "San Francisco Bulletin." From Captain Hooper's report of the cruise of the Corwin, the following interesting record of events during the interval is extracted:—
On the fourteenth we worked all day, drawing coal on the sleds, assisted by the natives and two sleds with three dogs each, but the rapidly melting ice made it very tedious. On the fifteenth we continued work, although the softness of the ice compelled us to reduce the loads to one-half their former size. About four in the afternoon a slight roll of the vessel was perceptible, indicating a swell coming in from the outside. At the same time a slight undulating motion of the ice was observed. This was followed by cracks in the ice running in every direction, and we had barely time to take in our ice anchors, call our men on board, and take the Thomas Pope in tow before the ice was all broken and in motion and rapidly drifting toward the mouth of the bay. At first it looked as if we might have to go to sea to avoid it. The wind by
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