“A new crack was reported at one o’clock, about the third of a mile from our ship; and the bearings of the sun showed that our brig had, for the first time since entering Baffin’s Bay, rotated considerably to the northward. Here were two subjects for examination. So, as soon as dinner was over, I started with Davis and Willie, two of my scurvy henchmen, on a walk to the openings. Reaching the recent crack, we found the ice five feet four inches thick, and the black water, in a clear streak a foot wide, running to the east and west.[G] I had often read of Esquimaux being carried off by the separation of these great floes; but, knowing that our guns could call assistance from the brig, we jumped over and hurried on. We were well paid.
[G] This direction, transverse to the long axis of Baffin’s Bay, seems to be that of most of our fissures.
“The hunamockings of this morning had ceased; the wind so gentle as hardly to be perceptible: the lead before me was an open river of water, and in it were narwhals (M. monoceros), in groups of five or six, rolling over and over, after the manner of the dolphin tribe. They were near me; so near that I could see their checkered backs, and enjoy the rich coloring that decorates them. The horn, that monodontal process which gives them their name of sea-unicorn, was perfectly examinable. Rising in a spirally indented cone, this beautiful appendage appeared sometimes eight and ten feet out of water; one especially, whose tall curvetings astonished my body-guard. I never saw a more graceful, striking, and beautiful exhibition than the unrestrained play of these narwhals.[H] In the same open water, almost in company with the narwhals, were white whales (Delphinopterus albicans, or Beluga: these cetacea have so many names, they puzzle me), and seal besides.
[H] I have seen many of these fish since, but never under such circumstances. I stood on a ledge of hummock within short gunshot. The animals were entirely unapprehensive. The non-symmetrical character of the “horn” (an unduly developed tooth, say the naturalists) was not seen; and as this long lance-like process played about at a constantly varying angle, it reminded me of the mast of some sunken boat swayed by the waves.
“I was tempted to stay too long. The wind sprang up suddenly. The floe began to move. I thought of the crack between me and the ship, and started off. The walking, however, was very heavy, and my scurvy patients stiff in the extensors. By the time I reached the crack, it had opened into a chasm, and a river as broad as the Wissahiccon ran between me and our ship. After some little anxiety—not much—I saw our captain ordering a party to our relief. The sledges soon appeared, dragged by a willing party; the India rubber boat was lowered into the lead, and the party ferried over. So ends this last trip to these ice-openings.
“It is evident that these gradual crack-formings and chasm-openings, with the hummocking and other attendant actions, are but preludes to a complete breaking up. Our previous observations show that the disruption of these large areas can not be effected suddenly. It is a gradual process; so gradual, even in Lancaster Sound, as to allow time for personal escape, although the vessel be a victim.
“From the 12th of January, the date of our last break-up, down to the present movement, is two months. The intense cold, with feeble winds and the absence of impact or collisions, have kept up the integrity of this great pack. I think it may reasonably be doubted whether it will now close again before our liberation or destruction. The excessive thickness of the tables, the wave and tidal actions, the mildening temperature, and the probable continuance of winds, all point to this. We have already a system of fissures within a third of a mile of us; and a continued augmentation of their number must soon place us in a centre of commotion. It is pleasant by one’s ice-experience to anticipate the state of things: and now that the battle is coming on again, I make a record of these reasoned expectations, to show you hereafter how well I am reasoning.
“One thing more: the days have stolen upon us—longer, and longer, and longer, until now the long twilight lets me read on deck as late as eight P.M. In fact, the sun’s greatest depression below the horizon is now 18°, the limit of theoretical twilight.
“March 26, Wednesday. The same peculiar crisping or crackling sound, which I noted on the 2d of February, was heard this morning in every direction. This sound, as the ‘noise accompanying the aurora,’ has been attributed by Wrangell and others, ourselves among the rest, to changes of atmospheric temperature acting upon the crust of the snow. We heard it most distinctly between seven and eight A.M., when the solar ray should begin to affect the snow. The mercury stood at -27° at five, rising to -19° by nine A.M., and attaining a maximum of -2° by noonday. But this is not to be regarded as indicating the temperature of the snow surface. The snow, when horizontal, according to all my observations, differs but little in temperature from the atmosphere, owing probably to its oblique reception of the solar ray; while the snow-coverings of the hummocks and angular floe-tables, which receive the rays at right angles, show by repeated trials a marked augmentation. I venture, therefore, to refer this peculiar crisping sound to the unequal contraction and dilatation of these unequally presenting surfaces, not to a sudden change of atmospheric temperature acting upon the snow.
“To-day we saw a couple of icebergs looking up in the far south.