western opening of the strait was now visible enough, but it looked entirely blocked up. Hatteras almost doubted whether it had ever been the opening.
However, the brig got under way again, and glided slowly along between the ice-streams, crushing the edges of the packs against her side timbers. The packs were still six to eight feet thick, and the utmost care was necessary to avoid coming into collision with any of them.
At noon, and for the first time, a magnificent solar phenomenon was observed, a halo with two parhelia. The Doctor took the exact dimensions: the outer corona was only visible for about 30° on each side of the horizontal diameter. The two images of the sun were remarkably distinct. The colors of both the arches were red nearest the sun, and then yellow, green, and very pale blue, fading into white outside.
Old sailors in the Arctic seas generally consider this phenomenon the presage of a heavy snowfall. Should their opinion prove correct, it would place the Forward in a still more awkward position. Hatteras felt that everything depended on getting forward without delay. He spent the remainder of the day and the whole of the night following on deck, without allowing himself a moment's rest, seeking for some practicable lead.
But next morning, when the Doctor joined him on the poop, he beckoned him right away to the after part of the ship, where they were quite out of ear-shot, and said:
"We are caught! It is impossible to get any farther."
"Impossible?" asked the Doctor.
"Yes, impossible! All the powder in the Forward would not gain a quarter of a mile for us."
"What's to be done, then?"
"Who knows? Confound this weather. It is an ill-omened year.
"Well, captain, if we must winter here, we must—that's all! As well here as anywhere else."
"True enough!" said Hatteras, in a low voice; "but we must not winter, especially in the month of June. Wintering at all is full of moral and physical danger. A crew soon becomes enervated by inactivity, combined with positive suffering, and I had made up my mind not to winter till we were in a much more northerly latitude."
