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Updated: June 4, 2025
After running for two hours without obstruction, we were once more mortified in perceiving that the ice, in very extensive and unusually heavy floes, closed in with the land a little to the westward of Cape Hay, and our channel of clear water between the ice and the land gradually diminished in breadth, till at length it became necessary to take in the studding sails, and to haul to the wind to look about us.
From the crow's-nest the lookout stared down upon a white expanse that stretched beyond the horizon. At dawn they began their careful search, feeling their way eastward through the open lanes and tortuous passages that separated the floes, now laying-to for the northward set of the fields to clear a path before them, now stealing through some narrow lead that opened into freer waters.
I cannot describe the impression of relentless destruction that was forced upon me as I looked down and around. The floes, with the force of millions of tons of moving ice behind them, were simply annihilating the ship." Essential supplies had been placed on the floe about 100 yds. from the ship, and there we set about making a camp for the night.
Openings in the floes would offer them opportunities to rise for a breath of fresh air, and dangers seemed few enough, since the ocean everywhere was deep, and ice-bergs, sinking dangerously to a great depth below the surface, were few.
But as very little was known about the movements of the pack the difficulties of making a choice may very easily be imagined, and, in spite of disappointments, Scott's opinion that the 178 W. was the best meridian did not change. 'The situation of the main bodies of pack, he says, 'and the closeness with which the floes are packed depend almost entirely on the prevailing winds.
Again the opposing edges of heavy floes rear up in slow and almost silent conflict, till high "hedgerows" are formed round each part of the puzzle. At the junction of several floes chaotic areas of piled-up blocks and masses of ice are formed. Sometimes 5-ft. to 6-ft. piles of evenly shaped blocks of ice are seen so neatly laid that it seems impossible for them to be Nature's work.
From submerged floes there was now the greatest danger, but we gradually drew away from all floating ice and sailed safely away as before. Each Sunday on board the "St. Paul" had been marked by some religious service conducted by one of the preachers, while an improvised quartet of voices led the singing.
With eyes dazed by sleep, we tried to guide the terror-stricken dogs and push the sledges to safety, but rapidly we saw the party being separated and the black water begin to appear amid the roar of the breaking ice floes. To the westward of our igloo stood the Captain's igloo, on an island of ice, which revolved, while swiftly drifting to the eastward.
To the south of where the watchers were gathered, the glacial heels of the inland mountains step precipitously into the sea and rise to a height of several thousand feet. At the base of these iron rocks, corroded with the rust of interminable ages, the fragments of great floes, like catapults, are tossed by the inrushing sea.
It swept Agatha's thoughts away to the frozen North, and she realized what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled painfully over the ridged and furrowed ice.
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