I made a trial to-day with the dredge, but nothing was brought up from the bottom except a couple of echinoderms (Asterias Grœnlandica and A. Albula). The sea is alive with little shrimps, among which the Crangon Boreas is most abundant. The full-grown ones are an inch long, and their tinted backs give a purplish hue to the water.
August 31st, 8 o'clock, P. M.
DRIVEN FROM SHELTER.
Night closes upon a day of disaster,—a day, I fear, of evil omen. My poor little schooner is terribly cut up.
BACK IN SMITH'S SOUND.
Soon after making my last entry yesterday I lay down for a little rest, but was soon aroused with the unwelcome announcement that we were dragging our anchors. McCormick managed to save the bower, but the hedge was lost. It caught a rock at a critical moment, and, the hawser parting, we were driven upon the bergs, which, as before stated, had grounded astern of us. The collision was a perfect crash. The stern boat flew into splinters, the bulwarks over the starboard-quarter were stove in, and, the schooner's head swinging round with great violence, the jib-boom was carried away, and the bow-sprit and foretop-mast were both sprung. In this crippled condition we at length escaped most miraculously, and under bare poles scudded before the wind. A vast number of icebergs and the "pack" coming in view, we were forced to make sail. The mainsail went to pieces as soon as it was set, and we were once more in great jeopardy; but fortunately the storm abated, and we have since been threshing to windward, and are once more within Smith's Sound. Again the gale appears to have broken; the northern sky is clear. Our spars will not allow us to carry jib and topsail;—bad for entering the pack.
The temperature is 22°, and the decks are again slippery with ice. Forward, the ropes, blocks, stays, halyards, and every thing else, are covered with a solid coating, and icicles a foot long hang from the monkey-rail and rigging. If they look pretty enough in the sunlight, they have a very wintry aspect, and are not at all becoming to a ship.
I tried this morning to reach Cape Isabella, but met the pack where it had obstructed us before. Some patches of open water were observed in the midst of it; but we found it impossible to penetrate the intervening ice. My only chance now is to work up the Greenland coast, get hold of the fast ice, and, through such leads as must have been opened by the wind higher up the Sound, endeavor to effect a passage to the opposite shore. Of reaching that shore I do not yet despair, although the wind has apparently packed the ice upon it to such a degree that it looks like a hopeless undertaking. I have already an eye upon Fog Inlet, twenty miles above Cape Alexander on the Greenland coast, and I shall now try to reach that point for a new start.
While I write the wind is freshening, and under close-reefed sails we are making a little progress. My poor sailors have a sorry time of it, with the stiffened ropes. The schooner, everywhere above the water, is coated with ice. The dogs are perishing with cold and wet. Three of them have already died.
September 1st, 8 o'clock, P. M.