With the last of the flood-tide the ice pressed in upon us still harder, jamming the _Roosevelt_ solidly but not seriously against the ice-foot; and anticipating still further pressures, I had the edge of the ice-foot throughout the _Roosevelt’s_ length chopped away on an incline to the water level, so that the ship might rise more easily to pressure. A fine snow fell throughout the day. At midnight of the 5th, the sun’s disk was apparently about two-thirds below the horizon. The fine snow continued during the sixth and the ice remained unchanged. After supper water pools off-shore were visible from the summit of the hill. There was evidently sufficient slack in the ice for a fresh southerly wind to form a good shore lead. On the sixth, I sent two parties of three hunters each, with supplies for ten days, out for musk-oxen, one party going southeast, the other southwest. Other Eskimos were sent out for hare. On the seventh it cleared sufficiently to give us our first view of Cape Hecla and the United States Range. September 8th was a brilliant day; three Eskimos came in from Black Cliffs Bay with twenty-three hare aggregating two hundred and eleven pounds. This made the number of hare killed along here nearly one hundred. The Eskimos were started at overhauling sledges and making harnesses. The 9th was a wonderfully mild day of brilliant sunshine for this time and place. Sent a party to Porter Bay, just south of Cape Hecla, the objective point I have in view for the _Roosevelt_—a beautiful little bay which I examined in 1902, with southern exposure and protected from the running ice. A position here would place us right at the beginning of our work, would be convenient to the musk-ox haunts of Clements Markham Inlet, and would be little or no farther than Sheridan from the musk-ox preserves of the Lake Hazen region. The dogs were all put ashore and found the beds of dry gravel along the shore a much more comfortable sleeping-place than the damp deck. On the 10th, the temperature rose to 20° and damp snow fell during the night and day. Early in the morning of the 11th, a fresh southerly wind commenced, accompanied by a heavy drift and a lane of water formed a few hundred feet outside of the _Roosevelt_ extending close past the point of Sheridan and on to Belknap. But the ice which held us against the ice-foot remained firmly fixed and we were unable to get into the water. In the evening it had closed again.