The violence with which
the ice was coming in being thus broken, it remained quiet during
the night, which was calm, with a heavy fall of snow.
The mass of ice which had been lifted up the preceding day being
drifted close to us on the morning of the 10th, I sent Lieutenant
Beechey to measure its thickness, which proved to be forty-two
feet; and as it was a piece of a regular floe, this measurement
may serve to give some idea of the general thickness of the ice in
this neighbourhood.
I began to consider whether it would not be advisable, whenever
the ice would allow us to move, to sacrifice a few miles of the
westing we had already made, and to run along the margin of the
floes, in order to endeavour to find an opening leading to the
southward, by taking advantage of which we might be enabled to
prosecute the voyage to the westward in a lower latitude. I was
the more inclined to make this attempt, from its having long
become evident to us that the navigation of this part of the Polar
Sea is only to be performed by watching the occasional openings
between the ice and the shore; and that, therefore, a continuity
of land is essential, if not absolutely necessary, for this
purpose. Such a continuity of land, which was here about to fail
us, must necessarily be furnished by the northern coast of
America, in whatsoever latitude it may be found; and, as a large
portion of our short season had already been occupied in fruitless
attempts to penetrate farther to the westward in our present
parallel, under circumstances of more than ordinary risk to the
ships, I determined, whenever the ice should open sufficiently, to
put into execution the plan I had proposed.
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