On the 24th, Hobson again started for the south-westward, to follow up his last track, and to endeavour to push his depôts further on. He returned to the ship on November 6, having experienced most severe weather, and great dangers from the unquiet state of the ice. When encamped near the shore, in latitude 70° 21′, the ice broke suddenly away from the land and drifted out to sea before the gale, carrying them off with it. They were perched upon a small floe piece, and a wide crack separated the two tents. Dense snow-drift heightened the darkness of the night, and they could not possibly tell in which direction they were driving. The next morning they found themselves fifteen miles from where they had pitched the previous evening. By the mercy of Providence a calm succeeded, and they escaped to the land over the ice which immediately formed. So thin was this new ice, that they momentarily expected to break through. By great exertion Hobson saved the depôt; and finding it impossible to do any more, he landed the provisions and returned to the ship. Our autumn travelling was now brought to a close. A depôt of provisions was to have been carried by Young across Victoria Straits, but this was given up as evidently impracticable. We sat down for the winter, praying that we might be spared to finish our work in the spring. The whole ship’s company marched in funeral procession to the shore on the 10th November, bearing upon a sledge the mortal remains of poor Mr. Bland (our chief engineer), who was found dead in his bed on the 7th. The burial service having been read, he was deposited in his frozen tomb, on which the wild flowers will never grow, and over which his relations can never mourn. We were all on board almost as one family, and any one taken from us was missed as one from the fireside at home. It was long before this sorrowful feeling throughout the ship could be shaken off. On the 14th the sun disappeared, and we were left in darkness; our skylights had long been covered over with snow, and by the light of our solitary dip we tried to pass the weary hours by reading, sleeping, and smoking. We were frozen in, in a fine harbour, surrounded by lofty granite hills, and on these were occasionally found a few ptarmigan, hares, and wild foxes; whenever the weather permitted, or we could at all see our way, we wandered over these dreary hills in search of a fresh mess. We varied our exercise with excursions on the ice in search of bears. But although exercise was so necessary for our existence, yet from the winds drawing through the straits and down our harbour as through a funnel, there were many days, and even weeks, when we could scarcely leave the ship. The men set fox-traps in all directions, and Mr. Petersen set seal-nets under the ice. The nets were not successful, but the traps gave an object for a walk. Magnetic observations were carried on throughout the winter;--the reading of one instrument, placed in a