The 1st of August had now arrived; and yet, incredible as it may appear, the ships were as securely confined in the ice as in the middle of winter, except that a pool of water, about twice their own length in diameter, was now opened around them. I determined, therefore, notwithstanding the apparent hopelessness of sawing our way through four or five miles of ice, to begin that laborious process; not, indeed, with the hope of cutting a canal sufficiently large to allow the passage of the ships to sea, but with a view to weaken it so much as in some measure to assist its disruption whenever any swell should set in upon its margin. On this and the following day, therefore, all the gear was carried down for that purpose, and a large tent pitched for the ships' companies to dine in, the distance being too great to allow them to return on board to their meals. On the 3d, however, we were saved a great deal of unnecessary labour, by the ice opening out at the crack before mentioned, so that our sawing might now be commenced within a mile of the Fury. After divine service, therefore, all hands were sent from both ships to bring back the tent and tools to the point of Oongalooyat, and the parties were recalled from the walrus-fishery, except a single boat's crew: these also returned on board a few days after, the whole number of seahorses killed being eight, and one large seal.
On the 4th our sawing work was commenced, with the usual alacrity on the part of the officers and men, and three hundred and fifty yards of ice were got out before night, its thickness varying from one to four feet, but very irregular on account of the numerous pools and holes. An equal length was accomplished on the following day, though not without excessive fatigue and constant wet to the men, several of whom fell into the water by the ice breaking under them.
On the 5th, the register-thermometer, which had been placed in the ground in the winter, was taken up, though, to our astonishment, the ground above and about it had become nearly as hard and compactly frozen as when we dug the hole to put it down. How this came about we were quite at a loss to determine; for the earth had been thrown in quite loosely, whereas its present consolidated state implied its having been thoroughly thawed and frozen again. It occupied two men ten days to extricate it, which, as they approached the thermometer, was done by a chisel and mallet, to avoid injury by jarring. This, however, was not sufficient to prevent mischief, the instrument being so identified with the frozen earth as to render it impossible to strike the ground near it without communicating the shock to the tubes, two of which were in consequence found to be broken. Thus ended our experiment for ascertaining the temperature of the earth during the winter; an experiment which it would seem, from this attempt, scarcely practicable to make in any satisfactory manner without some apparatus constructed expressly for the purpose.
On the 6th the work was continued as before, and about four hundred yards of ice were sawn through and floated out, leaving now a broad canal, eleven hundred yards in length, leading from the open water towards that formed by the gravelled space.
When the lateness of the season to which the ships had now been detained in the ice is considered, with reference to the probability of the Fury's effecting anything of importance during the short remainder of the present summer, it will not be wondered at that, coupling this consideration with that of the health of my officers and men, I began to entertain doubts whether it would still be prudent to adopt the intended measure of remaining out in the Fury as a single ship; whether, in short, under existing circumstances, the probable evil did not far outweigh the possible good. In order to assist my own judgment on this occasion upon one of the most material points, I requested the medical officers of the Fury to furnish me with their opinions "as to the probable effect that a third winter passed in these regions would produce on the health of the officers, seamen, and marines of that ship, taking into consideration every circumstance connected with our situation." Their answer was decidedly adverse to remaining; and it was fortified with such good reasons, connected with the health of the officers and crews, as scarcely to leave me at liberty to adopt any other course than that of returning to England with both vessels.
Enclosing to Captain Lyon the replies of the medical gentlemen, I now also requested his opinion whether, under existing circumstances, he still considered it expedient to adopt the measure originally intended, with respect to the separation of the two ships. I had scarcely despatched a letter to this effect, when, at 10 A.M. on the 8th, the ice about the Fury began to move, the pools breaking up, and the gravelled canal soon entirely closing. A breeze springing up from the northward at this time, all sail was made upon the ship, and the ice gradually driving out as it detached itself from the shore, the Fury got into open water about one P.M. The Hecla, however, still remained in the middle of her winter's floe, which, though it moved a little with the rest at first, did not come out of the bay. In the course of the afternoon, finding her still stationary, I determined to occupy the time in stretching over to the northward, for the purpose of examining the state of the fixed ice at the eastern mouth of the strait; and, arriving at its margin by ten P.M., found it attached to both shores from the northeastern part of Neerlo-naktoo across to Murray Maxwell Inlet. It was the general opinion that this ice was in a more solid state than at the same time and place the preceding year, but its situation did not, I believe, differ half a mile from what it had then been. As the sun went down nearly in the direction of the strait, we obtained from the masthead a distinct and extensive view in that quarter, and it is impossible to conceive a more hopeless prospect than this now presented. One vast expanse of level solid ice occupied the whole extent of sea visible to the westward, and the eye wearied itself in vain to discover a single break upon its surface.
Having finished this examination, which at once destroyed every hope I had never ceased to indulge of a passage through the strait, we returned towards Igloolik to rejoin the Hecla. It was not, however, till the morning of the 9th that we observed her to be moving out of the bay, when at length (for the first time, perhaps, that such an event ever occurred) she drove to sea in the middle of the floe. Thus at the mercy of the ice, she was carried over the shoals off the southeast point of Igloolik in six and a half fathoms, but was then fortunately drifted into deeper water. The swell on the outside was all that was wanting to break up her icy prison, which, separating at seven A.M., finally released her from confinement.
Having soon afterward received Captain Lyon's answer to my communication, it was necessary for me to come to a final determination on the subject therein alluded to. For various reasons, he advised that the Fury and Hecla should return to England together, as soon as such arrangements respecting the removal of stores and provisions, as I might judge proper to make, should be completed.
Under such circumstances, to which may be added the uncertainty of the Hecla's liberation from the ice to the southward before the close of the season, I no longer considered it prudent or justifiable, upon the slender chance of eventual success now before us, to risk the safety of the officers and men committed to my charge, and whom it was now my first wish to reconduct in good health to their country and their friends. Having communicated my intentions to the officers and ships' companies, I directed several additions to be made to their ordinary allowance of provisions, particularly in the various antiscorbutics, which had hitherto been reserved for cases of emergency; and then beating up to our winter station, which I named Turton Bay, we anchored there in the afternoon in ten fathoms, and immediately commenced our preparations for lightening the Fury. Seven months' provisions, a bower anchor, and a few other stores, were received by the Hecla, some of her water, before filled as ballast, being started to make room for them; and such other arrangements made as circumstances would permit for improving the stowage of the Fury's hold. The bay was now entirely clear of ice in every part; and so changed was its appearance in the course of the last four-and-twenty hours, that it was scarcely possible to believe it the same place that we had been accustomed daily to look upon for the ten preceding months.
The conveyance and stowage of the stores had scarcely been completed, when some loose ice drifting into the bay with the tide on the night of the 10th, obliged us hastily to get under way and stand out. On the following morning I ran across to the main land in the Fury, for the purpose of erecting, in compliance with my instructions, a flagstaff fifty-six feet in height, having at its top a ball, made of iron hoops and canvass, ten feet in diameter, and a cylinder buried near its foot, containing a parchment with some account of our visit to this place. In the mean time, I requested Captain Lyon to stand over to the point of Igloolik, where our walruses had been landed, and to bring off these, as well as our boats and tents remaining there. The ice soon after coming in upon the point, it was not without risk of the Hecla's being dangerously beset that Captain Lyon succeeded in bringing off everything but one boat. This was, indeed, no great loss to us, though a great acquisition to the Esquimaux; for, being almost worn out, I had intended to break her up previously to leaving the ice. Besides this, we purposely left our sledges, and a quantity of wood in pieces of a convenient size for bows, spears, and paddles, distributing them about in several places, that one or two individuals might not make a prize of the whole.