From this time, until the 9th of September, we were engaged in a never-ceasing struggle with the ice, frequently detained for many hours, and rarely advancing more than a few hundred yards during the day. The fast-forming ice reminded us unpleasantly of the near approach of winter, whilst the land had again assumed its wintry covering of snow. On the 22nd of August candles had to be used below at midnight for reading or writing. The young ice was found very tenacious, glueing and cementing the broken fragments of floes together. This caused such an impediment to our advance, although the pack was what is termed loose, that we were on several occasions compelled to relinquish all attempts at penetrating farther, and to secure the ships until a more favourable opportunity should occur. Our stock of coal, too, was getting alarmingly small, and had to be very carefully economized. Without the means of steaming, our chance of escape would, indeed, have been small. On the 24th we rounded Cape Fraser;[3] on the 27th,[4] so slow was our progress, that we only just succeeded in getting into Dobbin Bay, where we were detained until the 3rd of September. The temperature had fallen to 19°. Last year we were frozen up on the 3rd of September, and here were we on the same date with as low a temperature and many miles to accomplish before we could actually be clear of the ice! Snow also began to fall heavily, and everything appeared gloomy and inhospitable. As there was now a prospect of our being forcibly detained for another winter in the ice, and as some of our provisions were getting low, on passing the large depôt established in Dobbin Bay on our way up the previous year, we landed and brought off all the tea, sugar, and chocolate, and such other articles as we were likely to require. Whilst this work was in progress, a large ground seal (_Phoca barbata_) was shot by Hans, of the "Discovery," on which was found a partially healed wound; on further examination, an iron-pointed harpoon with an ivory socket, evidently of Eskimo construction, was discovered imbedded in its blubber. It would have been very interesting if we could have traced, by the manufacture of the instrument, the tribe to which it had belonged and the locality where the wound was inflicted. One morning, when some little distance from the land, a small fox, of a mottled colour, wandered off to the ship, being attracted towards us either by hunger or curiosity. The officer of the watch, always on the _alert_, soon spied the little animal cruising about amongst the hummocks and shot it. The skin was preserved with the collection of natural history specimens, whilst the body was eaten by us at dinner and found to be delicious. Passing Cape Hawks, and Allman Bay, an inlet which was named after the distinguished President of the Linnæan Society, we continued to push the ships in the direction of open water to the south, which we at length reached.