To
these circumstances was added our uncertainty whether very high
tides during the winter might not crack the ice, thereby exposing
the ships to the double danger of being "nipped" about their
water-line, and of being drifted out of the bay by northerly gales.
That which was, however, perhaps the most to be apprehended, was
the possibility of the ships being forced into shoal water, without
detaching themselves from the mass of ice cemented to their bends,
the weight of which, hanging upon the sides of a ship left aground
by the tide, could not but produce very serious injury.
About the time of our arrival in the bay, when the thermometer had
fallen nearly to _zero_, the condensation of vapour upon the beams
of the lower deck, and in the cabins near the hatchways, commenced
just as it had done at a similar temperature before. To remedy
this evil, no time was lost in lighting a fire in the warming-stove
upon the orlop-deck, everything being previously moved from its
neighbourhood that was likely to create danger. The iron tanks in
the main hatchway were laid bare on the top, and the interstices
between them filled with sand, to form a secure platform in front
of the fire; and the sailroom, bulkheads, and stancheons covered
with sheet copper.
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