On this last plan the duty was commenced, very little interrupted by the weather.  For quite three weeks the wind held from points favourable to the progress of spring, veering from east to west, but not once getting any southing in it.  Occasionally it blew in gales, sending down upon the group a swell that made great havoc with the outer edges of the field-ice.  Every day or two a couple of hands were sent up the mountain to take a look-out, and to report the state of matters in the adjacent seas.  The fleet of bergs had not yet come out of port, though it was in motion to the southward, like three-deckers dropping down to outer anchorages, in roadsteads and bays.  As Roswell intended to be off before these formidable cruisers put to sea, their smallest movement or change was watched and noted.  As for the field-ice, it was broken up, miles at at a time, until there remained very little of it, with the exception of the portion that was wedged in and jammed among the islands of the group.  From some cause that could not be ascertained, the waves of the ocean, which came tumbling in before the northern gales, failed to roll home upon this ice, which lost its margin, now it was reduced to the limits of the group, slowly and with great resistance.  Some of the sealers ascribed this obstinacy in the bay-ice to its greater thickness; believing that the shallowness of the water had favoured a frozen formation below, that did not so much prevail off soundings.  This theory may have been true, though there was quite as much against it, as in its favour, for polar ice usually increases above and not from below.  The sea is much warmer than the atmosphere, in the cold months, and the ice is made by deposites of snow, moisture and sleet, on the surfaces of the fields and bergs.

In those three weeks, which carried forward the season to within ten days of summer, a great deal of useful work was done.  Daggett was brought over to the house, on a handbarrow, for the second time, and made as comfortable as circumstances would allow.  From the first, Roswell saw that his state was very precarious, the frozen legs, in particular, being threatened with mortification.  All the expedients known to a sealer’s materia medico, were resorted to, in order to avert consequences so serious, but without success.  The circulation could not be restored, as nature required it to be done, and, failing of the support derived from a healthful condition of the vital current, the fatal symptoms slowly supervened.  This change, however, was so gradual, that it scarce affected the regular course of the duty.