to have been very light for such hard work in that severe climate—ten ounces of biscuit, nine ounces of pemmican, and one ounce of sweetened cocoa-powder, with one gill of rum per day each man. The fuel used consisted exclusively of spirits of wine, the cocoa, or pemmican soup, being cooked in an iron pot over a shallow lamp with seven wicks. [Illustration: THE EDGE OF THE PACK.] The journey commenced with very slow and laborious travelling, the pieces of ice at the margin of the pack being of small extent and very rugged. This obliged them to make three, and sometimes four, journeys with the boats and baggage, and to launch frequently over narrow pools of water. In other words, in making a distance of two miles they had to travel six or eight, and their progress was very tedious. Fog and rain hindered them somewhat, while the condition of much of the ice over which they passed rendered their journey very fatiguing. Much of it “presented a very curious appearance and structure, being composed, on its upper surface, of numberless irregular, needle-like crystals, placed vertically and nearly close together, their length varying, in different pieces of ice, from five to ten inches.” A vertical section of it resembled satin-spar and asbestos when falling to pieces. This kind of ice affords pretty firm footing early in the season, but as the summer advances the needles become loose and movable, rendering progress very difficult, besides cutting into the boots and feet. The men called these ice-spikes “pen-knives.” This peculiar formation of ice Parry attributed to the infiltration of rain-water from above. The water was standing in pools on the ice, and they had often to wade through it. On the 28th the party arrived at a floe covered with high and rugged hummocks in successive tiers, and the boats had to be dragged up and down places which were almost perpendicular. While performing this laborious work, one of the men was nearly crushed by a boat falling upon him from one of the hummocks. As an example of the harassing nature of this service, we find them on the 29th, in making a mile of northing by a circuitous route among the ice-masses and open pools, travelling and re-travelling about _ten_ miles in order to keep the party and supplies together. They tried for soundings, and found no bottom at two hundred fathoms (1,200 feet); later, a four hundred fathom line gave no bottom. On the 30th snowy and inclement weather rendered the atmosphere so thick that they were obliged to halt; later in the same day they made five miles by rowing in a very winding channel.