open sea, which seemed the more probable from our having seen seven or eight narwhals, and not less than two hundred rotges, a flock of these little birds occurring in every hole of water.  At noon on the 10th of August, we observed in latitude 81 deg. 40’ 13”, which was only four miles to the northward of our reckoning from the last observation, although there had been almost constantly southing in the wind ever since, and it had been blowing strong from that quarter for the last thirty hours.  This circumstance afforded a last and striking proof of the general tendency of the ice to drift southward, about the meridians on which we had been travelling.  Another bear came towards the boats in the course of the day, and was killed.  We were now so abundantly supplied with meat, that the men would again have eaten immoderately had we not interposed the necessary authority to prevent them.  As it was, our encampment became so like an Esquimaux establishment, that we were obliged to shift our place upon the floe in the course of the day, for the sake of cleanliness and comfort.

The wind falling towards midnight, we launched the boats at half past one A.M. on the 11th, paddling alternately in large spaces of clear water and among streams of loose “sailing ice.”  We soon afterward observed such indications of an open sea as could not be mistaken, much of the ice being “washed” as by a heavy sea, with small rounded fragments thrown on the surface, and a good deal of “dirty ice” occurring.  After passing through a good deal of loose ice, it became gradually more and more open, till at length, at a quarter before seven A.M., we heard the first sound of the swell under the hollow margins of the ice, and in a quarter of an hour had reached the open sea, which was dashing with heavy surges against the outer masses.  We hauled the boats upon one of these, to eat our last meal upon the ice, and to complete the necessary supply of water for our little voyage to Table Island, from which we were now distant fifty miles, our latitude being 81 deg. 34’, and longitude 18-1/4 deg.  E. A light air springing up from the N.W., we again launched the boats, and at eight A.M. finally quitted the ice, after having taken up our abode upon it for forty-eight days.

We had some fog during the night, so that we steered entirely by compass, according to our last observations by the chronometers, which proved so correct, that, at five A.M. on the 12th, on the clearing up of the haze, we made the island right ahead.  At eleven A.M. we reached the island, or rather the rock to the northward of it, where our provisions had been deposited; and I cannot describe the comfort we experienced in once more feeling a dry and solid footing.  We found that the bears had devoured all the bread (one hundred pounds), which occasioned a remark among the men, with reference to the quantity of these animals’ flesh that we had eaten, that “Bruin was only square with us.”  We also found that Lieutenant