Steam was accordingly quickly raised, and another attempt made to proceed; but alas! having incautiously been tempted by promising lanes of water to stray farther from the land than had hitherto been our custom, we were soon hopelessly beset by very heavy ice, of at least eighty or one hundred feet in thickness, and fully ten feet above the surface of the water. So high was it that our boats, suspended at the davits, were seriously endangered, and had in consequence to be "turned in" to avoid being crushed altogether. We were, fortunately, surrounded by loose pieces of broken-off ice, which acting as cushions between the ship and the more massive floes, thereby saved the "Alert" from an unpleasant nip. As there was no saying when we might be deprived of the friendly aid of these "buffers," by any sudden movement of the pack, steam was kept ready in both boilers in order that we might take immediate advantage of any such motion for the purpose of extricating our vessel from her very unpleasant and perilous position. An anxious night was spent by all on board, and many ineffectual attempts were made to push our way through cracks in the pack that appeared to be inclined to open. Sleep was out of the question--indeed, was hardly thought of--every one being prepared, with his little bag of necessaries, to abandon the ship when such an order, which seemed inevitable, should be given. On the following day, by dint of much labour, a space was cleared round the stern of the vessel, which enabled us to ship our rudder, and, the ice having slackened a little, by constantly steaming ahead and astern we succeeded in clearing a larger space in which the ship could be worked, when, boldly attacking the pack, we forced our way through, and with relieved minds and thankful hearts extricated ourselves from our dangerous position, and once more secured the ship in Lincoln Bay. The time occupied in steaming through the pack, a distance of about a mile, was exactly five hours! The ice was observed to be still tightly packed against Cape Union, and consequently hindered us from pushing on. We had much reason to be grateful for our safe deliverance from the pack, for, shortly after our extrication, a heavy gale sprang up from the S.W., the effect of which on the ship, beset in such ponderous ice, must have been disastrous in the extreme, and would in all probability have been fatal. Ice navigators, however, are not, as a rule, prone to indulge in ideas as to "what _might_ have occurred had this or that happened:" their thoughts and minds must be directed entirely to the present and the future, only too happy and thankful, as the days go by, to find they still have their own good vessel to sustain them, and carry them through another day. To our engines we owed a deep debt of gratitude, for without the powerful aid of steam we should have been unable, before the gale burst upon us, to have effected our deliverance.