Getting clear of the loose ice in the pack edge, we steered to the northward, to look for an opening in any place where we could attempt a passage. The ice, however, presented an impenetrable line, and having reached, on August 12, latitude 75° 10′ north, longitude 58° west, we made fast to an iceberg aground under the glacier. It was a lovely evening; the sky bright and clear, and the thermometer standing at 36° in the shade. Seals were playing about the ship, and we added to our stock of beef. But a dreary prospect rather damped our pleasure. The ice extended in one unbroken mass right into the land, and pressed hard upon the very coast; not a drop of water could be seen from the masthead, in the direction in which we desired to go. The southerly winds, before which we had been running, appeared to have driven the whole pack into the head of Melville Bay. The season was passing away, and without an early change to wind and a continuance of it from the northward, we were almost without a hope. In the evening we visited the glacier, but the _débris_ of shattered ice, and the innumerable bergs and floe pieces, prevented our getting close to its base. It was a beautifully calm night; not a sound to be heard, save the crashing of some enormous mass rent from the face of the glacier, or distant rumbling of the vast inland ice, as it moved slowly down towards the sea. Far away over the continent, nothing but the surface of glacier could be seen, excepting here or there a mountain peak, showing up through the ice; and the bright glare of the ice-blink shot up into the sky, giving a yellow tinge to the otherwise deep blue vault of heaven. Flights of ducks winged their way to the southward, reminding us that it was the season when those desolate regions were deserted, and that we should be left alone. Our distant ship was lying so surrounded with huge and lofty bergs, that only her masthead could be seen through an opening; and a low melancholy howling (such as an Esquimaux dog alone knows how to make) occasionally broke upon the ear--for our dogs had all gone up to the very top of a lofty berg, and were thus expressing their home-sick longings, and, perhaps, a foreboding of the unhappy fate that awaited many of them.