Fury's diagonal ceiling had so long kept her afloat, and that any ship not thus fortified within could not possibly have been kept free by the pumps. 'At night, just as the people were going to rest, the ice began to move to the southward, and soon after came in towards the shore, again endangering the Fury's rudder, and pressing her over on her side to so alarming a degree, as to warn us that it would not be safe to lighten her much more in her present insecure situation. 'One of our bergs also shifted its position by this pressure, so as to weaken our confidence in the pier heads of our intended basin; and a long 'tongue' of one of them, forcing itself under the Hecla's fore-foot, while the drift-ice was also pressing her forcibly from astern, she once more sewed three or four feet forward at low water, and continued to do so, notwithstanding repeated endeavours to haul her off, for four successive tides, the ice remaining so close, and so much doubled under the ship, as to render it impossible to move her a single inch. 'Notwithstanding the state of the ice, however, we did not remain idle on the 8th, all hands being employed in unrigging the Fury, and landing all her spars, sails, booms, boats, and other top weight. 'The ice still continuing very close on the 9th, all hands were employed in attempting, by saws and axes, to clear the Hecla, which still grounded on the tongue of ice every tide. After four hours' labour, they succeeded in making four or five feet of room astern, when the ship suddenly slided down off the tongue with considerable force, and became once more afloat. We then got on shore the Hecla's cables and hawsers for the accommodation of the Fury's men in our tiers during the heaving down; struck our topmasts, which would be required as shores and outriggers; and, in short, continued to occupy every individual in some preparation or other. 'These being entirely completed at an early hour in the afternoon, we ventured to go on with the landing of the coals and provisions from the Fury, preferring to run the risk which would thus be incurred, to the loss of even a few hours in the accomplishment of our present object. As it very opportunely happened, however, the external ice slackened to the distance of about a hundred yards outside of us, on the morning of the 10th, enabling us by a most tedious and laborious operation, to clear the ice out of our basin piece by piece. The difficulty of this apparently simple process consisted in the heavy pressure having repeatedly doubled one mass under another, a position in which it requires great power to move them, and also by the corners locking in with the sides of the bergs.