At one P.M. on the 5th, the weather continuing quite calm, and being desirous of examining the ice in-shore, that we might be ready for the floes closing upon us, I left the ship, accompanied by Captain Sabine and Mr. Edwards, and landed near one of the numerous deep and broad ravines with which the whole of this part of the island is indented. We were ascending the hill, which was found by trigonometrical measurement to be eight hundred and forty-seven feet above the level of the sea, and on which we found no mineral production but sandstone and clay iron-stone, when a breeze sprung up from the eastward, bringing up the Griper, which had been left several miles astern. We only stopped, therefore, to obtain observations for the longitude and the variation of the magnetic needle; the former of which was 112° 53' 32", and the latter 110° 56' 11" easterly, and then immediately returned on board and made all sail to the westward. After running for two hours without obstruction, we were once more mortified in perceiving that the ice, in very extensive and unusually heavy floes, closed in with the land a little to the westward of Cape Hay, and our channel of clear water between the ice and the land gradually diminished in breadth, till at length it became necessary to take in the studding sails, and to haul to the wind to look about us. I immediately left the ship, and went in a boat to examine the grounded ice off a small point of land, such as always occurs on this coast at the outlet of each ravine. I found that this point offered the only possible shelter which could be obtained in case of the ice coming in; and I therefore determined to take the Hecla in-shore immediately, and to pick out the best berth which circumstances would admit. As I was returning on board with this intention, I found that the ice was already rapidly approaching the shore; no time was to be lost, therefore, in getting the Hecla to her intended station, which was effected by half past eight P.M., being in nine to seven fathoms water, at the distance of twenty yards from the beach, which was lined all round the point with very heavy masses of ice that had been forced by some tremendous pressure into the ground. Our situation was a dangerous one, having no shelter from ice coming from the westward, the whole of which, being distant from us less than half a mile, was composed of floes infinitely more heavy than any we had elsewhere met with during the voyage. The Griper was three or four miles astern of us at the time when the ice began to close, and I therefore directed Lieutenant Liddon, by signal, to secure his ship in the best manner he could, without attempting to join the Hecla; he accordingly made her fast at eleven P.M., near a point like that at which we were lying, and two or three miles to the eastward.