The weather continuing very thick, with small snow, and there being now every reason to suppose a final disruption of the fixed ice at hand, I determined to provide against the danger to which, at night, this long-wished-for event would expose the ships, by adopting a plan that had often before occurred to me as likely to prove beneficial in an unknown and critical navigation such as this. This was nothing more than the establishment of a temporary lighthouse on shore during the night, which, in case of our getting adrift, would, together with the soundings, afford us that security which the sluggish traversing of the compasses otherwise rendered extremely doubtful. For this purpose, two steady men, provided with a tent and blankets, were landed on the east point of Amherst Island at sunset, to keep up some bright lights during the eight hours of darkness, and to be sent for at daylight in the morning. On the 17th the wind freshened almost to a gale from the northwest, with thicker and more constant snow than before. The thermometer fell to 16-1/2° at six A.M., rose no higher than 20° in the course of the day, and got down to 12° at night, so that the young ice began now to form about us in great quantities. Appearances had now become so much against our making any farther progress this season, as to render it a matter of very serious consideration whether we ought to risk being shut up during the winter in the middle of the strait, where, from whatever cause it might proceed, the last year's ice was not yet wholly detached from the shores, and where a fresh formation had already commenced, which there was too much reason to believe would prove a permanent one. Our wintering in the strait involved the certainty of being frozen up for eleven months; a sickening prospect under any circumstances, but in the present instance, probably, fatal to our best hopes and expectations. The young ice had now formed so thick about the Fury, that it became rather doubtful whether we should get her out without an increase of wind to assist in extricating her, or a decrease of cold. At ten A.M., however, we began to attempt it, but by noon had not moved the ship more than half her own length. As soon as we had reached the outer point of the floe, in a bay of which we had been lying, we had no longer the means of applying a force from without, and, if alone, should therefore have been helpless, at least for a time. The Hecla, however, being fortunately unencumbered, in consequence of having lain in a less sheltered place, sent her boats with a hawser to the margin of the young ice; and ours being carried to meet it, by men walking upon planks, at considerable risk of going through, she at length succeeded in pulling us out; and, getting into clear water, or, rather, into less tough ice, at three P.M. we shaped a course to the eastward.