The ships being now as well secured as our means permitted from the immediate danger of ice, the clearing of the _Fury_ went on during the 11th with increased confidence, though greater alacrity was impossible, for nothing could exceed the spirit and zealous activity of every individual, and as things had turned out, the ice had not obliged us to wait a moment, except at the actual times of its pressure. Being favoured with fine weather, we continued our work very quickly, so that on the 12th every cask was landed and also the powder; and the spare sails and clothing put on board the _Hecla_. On the 13th we found that a mass of heavy ice, which had been aground within the _Fury_, had now floated off alongside of her at high water, still further contracting our already narrow basin, and leaving the ship no room for turning round. At the next high water, therefore, we got a purchase on it and hove it out of the way, so that at night it drifted off altogether. The coals and preserved meats were the principal things now remaining on board the _Fury_, and these we continued landing by every method we could devise as the most expeditious. The tide rose so considerably at night, new moon occurring within an hour of high water, that we were much afraid of our bergs floating: they remained firm, however, even though the ice came in with so much force as to break one of our hand-masts, a fir spar of twelve inches diameter. As the high tides and the lightening of the _Fury_ now gave us sufficient depth of water for unshipping the rudders, we did so, and laid them upon the small berg astern of us, for fear of their being damaged by any pressure of the ice. Early on the morning of the 14th, the ice slackening a little in our neighbourhood, we took advantage of it, though the people were much fagged, to tighten the cables, which had stretched and yielded considerably by the late pressure. It was well that we did so; for in the course of this day we were several times interrupted in our work by the ice coming with a tremendous strain on the north cables, the wind blowing strong from the N.N.W., and the whole “pack” outside of us setting rapidly to the southward. Indeed, notwithstanding the recent tightening and readjustment of the cables, the bight was pressed in so much as to force the _Fury_ against the berg astern of her twice in the course of the day. Mr. Waller, who was in the hold the second time that this occurred, reported that the coals about the keelson were moved by it, imparting the sensation of a part of the ship’s bottom falling down; and one of the men at work there was so strongly impressed with that belief that he thought it high time to make a spring for the hatchway. From this circumstance it seemed more than probable that the main keel had received some serious damage near the middle of the ship.