The ice we met with after leaving Port Bowen, previously to the _Fury’s_ disaster, and for some days after, I consider to have been much the lightest as well as the most broken we have ever had to contend with. During the time we were shut up at our last station near the _Fury_, one or two floes of very large dimensions drifted past us; and these were of that heavy “hummocky” kind which we saw off Cape Kater in the beginning of August, 1819. On the whole, however, Mr. Allison and myself had constant occasion to remark the total absence of floes, and the unusual lightness of the other ice. We thought, indeed, that this latter circumstance might account for its being almost incessantly in motion on this coast; for heavy ice, when once it is pressed home upon the shore, and has ceased to move, generally remains quiet, until a change of wind or tide makes it slacken. But with lighter ice, the frequent breaking and doubling of the parts which sustain the strain, whenever any increase of pressure takes place, will set the whole body once more in motion till the space is again filled up. This was so often the case while our ships lay in the most exposed situations on this unsheltered coast, that we were never relieved for a moment from the apprehension of some new and increased pressure. The summer of 1825 was, beyond all doubt, the warmest and most favourable we had experienced since that of 1818. Not more than two or three days occurred, during the months of July and August, in which that heavy fall of snow took place which so commonly converts the aspect of Nature in these regions, in a single hour, from the cheerfulness of summer into the dreariness of winter. Indeed, we experienced very little either of snow, rain, or fog; vegetation, wherever the soil allowed any to spring up, was extremely luxuriant and forward; a great deal of the old snow which had laid on the ground during the last season was rapidly dissolving even early in August; and every appearance of Nature exhibited a striking contrast with the last summer, while it seemed evidently to furnish an extraordinary compensation for its rigour and inclemency.