schooner fast to a 'floe,' that is, lying alongside the flat ice, as by a quay. The wind was fair for us, blowing a moderate breeze, so that we soon ran down to her in saucy style, rounding to just ahead of her position, and making fast in like manner. To our great joy we found that, as we had suspected, and, indeed, knew, as soon as colors were hoisted, it was indeed Sir John Ross in the 'Felix.' Glad was I of an opportunity to see the gallant old veteran, whose name and writings had latterly been so frequently before me. Directly we got on board, Sir John Ross came to meet us; I saw before me him who, for four long years and more, had been incarcerated, hopelessly, with his companions, in those icy regions to which we ourselves were bound. I was struck with astonishment! It was nothing, in comparison, for the young and robust to come on such a voyage; but that _he_, at his time of life, when men generally think it right--and right, perhaps, it is, too--to sit quietly down at home by their own firesides, should brave the hardship and danger once again, was indeed surprising. "In the evening both vessels had to move into another position, in consequence of the bergs approaching too closely toward us. To watch these mountain, icy monsters in a calm, as they slowly and silently, yet surely and determinedly, move about in the narrow sheet of water by which they chance to be encompassed, one could well imagine that it was some huge mysterious thing, possessed of life, and bent on the fell purpose of destruction. Onward it almost imperceptibly glides, until reaching an opposing floe, it forces its way far through the solid ice, plowing up the pieces and throwing them aside in hilly heaps with a force and power apparently incredible. Should it happen that an impetus is given to it by wind, or other causes besides those thus occasioned by the tide, or current, it is mighty in its strength, and terrific in the desolation it produces. Nothing can save a ship if thus caught by one, as was the case in the memorable and fatal year of 1830, in this very bay, when vessels were 'squeezed flat'--'reared up by the ice, almost in the position of a rearing horse! others thrown fairly over on their broadsides; and some actually overrun by the advancing floe and totally buried by it.'" The obstructions presented by the ice continued to increase so that in a whole fortnight, in spite of the most strenuous exertions, they made only twelve miles in their northward course. And even this, as they subsequently learned, was more than was performed by the government expedition, which was five weeks in advancing thirty miles. On the third of August, in Melville's Bay, night closed in upon [Illustration: THE PRINCE ALBERT IN A DANGEROUS POSITION.]