they began to collect ballast for the Hecla, to make up for the expenditure of stores.
The coldest part of the year was now approaching; yet the sun had sufficient power to affect the thermometer, which rose from 40 deg. to 35 deg. when exposed to its rays. The distance at which sounds were heard in the open air during the continuance of this intense cold was truly surprising. Conversation carried on a mile off could be distinctly heard. The smoke from the ships, too, owing to the difficulty it has to rise in a low temperature, was carried horizontally to a great distance. On the 15th, the mercury sunk to 55 deg. below zero, which was the most intense degree of cold observed during the winter. Mercury was malleable in this state of the atmosphere.
From this time the temperature gradually rose. The length of the days had so much increased by the 26th of February, that a very sensible twilight was visible in the north.
For the last three or four days of April, the snow on the black cloth of the housing had begun to thaw a little during a few hours in the middle of the day, and on the 30th so rapid a change took place in the temperature of the atmosphere, that the thermometer stood at the freezing, or, as it may more properly be termed in this climate, the thawing point, being the first time that such an event had occurred for nearly eight months, or since the 9th of the preceding September.
This rapid change in the weather revived their hopes of a speedy departure from Melville Island; and they all had sanguine expectations of leaving their winter quarters before July. On the first of May, however, it blew a gale, and the sun was seen at midnight for the first time that season. On the 6th, the people began the operation of cutting the ships out of the harbor; and on the 17th, the ships were once more afloat. On the 21st, some of the officers took a walk inland, and were able to fill a pint bottle with water from a pool of melted snow, which was the first they had seen; a proof of the extreme severity of the climate.
A perceptible change had now taken place in the ice. The upper surface was covered with innumerable pools of brackish water, so that the liberation of the sea might be daily expected. Being desirous of obtaining as much game as possible during the remainder of the time that must be passed in Winter Harbor, Captain Parry sent out hunting parties to remain ten or twelve miles inland, with orders to send whatever game they might procure, to the ships, and also to observe the ice from the hill tops, and report any change that might take place.
The dissolution of the ice continued daily, and on the 22d, it was observed to be in motion in the offing; settling to the eastward at the rate of a mile an hour. The dissolution of the ice of the harbor went on so rapidly, in the early part of July, that they were greatly surprised, on the 6th, in finding that in several of the pools of water, on its upper surface, holes were washed quite through to the sea beneath.
On the morning of the 26th, there being a space of clear water for three quarters of a mile to the southward, they took advantage of a northern breeze to run as far as the opening would permit, and then dropped anchor at the edge of the ice, intending to advance step by step as it separated. The ice across the entrance of the harbor in this spot, as
