"These are moments full of anxiety, when from some hummock one looks doubtingly over the ice, one's thoughts continually reverting to the same question: have we provisions enough to wait for the time when the snow will have melted and the ice have become slacker and more intersected with lanes, so that one can row between the floes? Or is there any probability of our being able to obtain sufficient food, if that which we have should fall short? These are great and important questions which I cannot yet answer for certain. That it will take a long time before all this snow melts away and advance becomes fairly practicable is certain; at what time the ice may become slacker, and progress by means of the lanes possible, we cannot say; and up to this we have taken nothing, with the exception of two ivory gulls and a small fish. We did, indeed, see another fish swimming near the surface of the water, but it was no larger than the other. Where we are just now there seems to be little prospect of capturing anything. I have not seen a single seal the last few days; though yesterday I saw the snowed-down track of a bear. Meanwhile we see ivory gulls continually; but they are still too small to be worth a cartridge; yesterday, however, I saw a large gull, probably Larus argentatus. "I determined to make one more attempt to get on by striking farther east and this time I was successful in finding a passage across by way of a number of small floes. On the other side there was rather old compact ice, partially of formation a summer old, which seemed to have been near land, as it was irregular, and much intermixed with earthy matter. We have travelled over this ice-field ever since without coming on lanes; but it was uneven, and we came to grief several times. In other places again it was pretty good.