Two Eskimos sent east reported the lead impracticable in that direction and a branch swinging off to southeast. The lead was slowly widening so that the young ice had no time to get firm.
Late in the evening, after a few preliminary cracks, the ice broke about us with a furious rending sound, and jarring of the igloo.
Going out I found that a crack some twelve feet wide had opened in our floe a short distance to the south, cutting us from the main floe. A good day though hazy. Movement of northern ice decreasing, and the lead skimming over. Another fine day followed. The movement of the ice had practically ceased, and the lead was skimmed over so as to cut off the dense vapour that had been obscuring our view to the north.
The Eskimos claimed to see water to the north, but I could see nothing but mirage, and declined to believe in it until I had it at my feet.
Satisfactory observations with sextant and transit gave Lat. 84° 38′ + Longitude 74° W. approx, and Var. 107½° W. We were somewhat farther west than I intended owing to the constant tendency of Henson and his party to turn to the left in negotiating leads and areas of rough ice.
I did not sleep much during the night of the 30th (not but that I was comfortable enough physically) and we had an early tea.
A raw, cloudy, threatening morning with a breeze from S. S. W. true which I feared would develop into a gale. In the afternoon and evening it cleared and was fine again. I got my observations just in time.
The ice had ceased its motion entirely now, and in the afternoon of the 31st the young ice on the lead (now some two miles wide) was safe except a strip about 100 feet wide in the centre, with a narrow band of open water in its middle.
I sent Henson with one man and the long sledge to the east on the young ice, and he reported the main lead narrowing and branching, one branch running S. E. true. The band of young ice and the water crack continued on east.
In the afternoon I had the men cut a sledge road through the rubble ice, bordering the lead, to the young ice, as we might be able to get a start the next day.