ice round the Hecla, which was performed in the following manner:–
“The ice alongside was found to be six feet thick, being about eighteen inches less than the average thickness of it in the harbour, owing principally to our having continued to cut it round the ships for some time after the commencement of the winter season. We began by digging a large hole under the stern, in order to enter the saw, which occupied us nearly two days, only a small number of men being able to work at it. In the mean time, all the snow and rubbish was cleared away from the ship’s sides, leaving only the solid ice to work upon: and a trench, two feet wide, was cut the whole length of the starboard side, from the stem to the rudder, keeping within an inch or two of the bends, and taking care here and there to leave a dike, to prevent the water which might ooze into one part from filling up the others in which the men were working. In this manner was the trench cut with axes, to the depth of about four feet and a half, leaving only 18 inches for the saws to cut, except in those places where the dikes remained. The saw being then entered in the hole under the stern, and suspended by a triangle made of spars, was worked in the usual manner; one cut was made on the outer part of the trench, and a second within an inch or two of the bends, in order to avoid injuring the planks. A small portion of ice, broken off now and then by bars, handspikes, and ice-chisels, floated to the surface, and was hooked out by piece-meal. When the workmen had completed the trench, within 10 or 12 feet of the stern, the ship suddenly disengaged herself from the ice, to which she had before been firmly adhering on the larboard side, and rose in the water about ten inches abaft, and nearly eighteen inches forward, with a considerable surge. This circumstance, on consideration, it was not difficult to explain. In the course of the winter, the strong eddy winds about the ships had formed round then a drift of snow, 7 or 8 feet deep in some parts, and, perhaps, weighing 100 tons, by which the ice, and the ships with it, were carried down much below the natural level at which they would otherwise have floated. In the mean time the ships had become considerably lighter, from the expenditure of several months provisions; so that, on both these accounts, they had naturally a tendency to rise in the water as soon as they were set at liberty.”
During the re-equipment of the ships, Lieutenant Parry and Captain Sabine, accompanied by Messrs. Nias, Reid, and Fisher, Serjeant Martin, and five other men, travelled across Melville Island and discovered another to the north-eastward, which was named after Captain Sabine; they then proceeded in a westerly direction until they came to a spacious gulf, which was named after Lieutenant Liddon. The headlands terminating its north and south shores, received the
