enormous extent, for though we have traversed at least twenty miles
of its surface, there has been no sign of its coming to an end.
The frost has been so severe of late that the overlying snow is
frozen as hard as granite, otherwise we might have had the
footsteps to guide us. The crew are anxious that we should cast
off and steam round the floe and so to the southward, for the ice
has opened up during the night, and the sea is visible upon the
horizon. They argue that Captain Craigie is certainly dead, and
that we are all risking our lives to no purpose by remaining when
we have an opportunity of escape. Mr. Milne and I have had the
greatest difficulty in persuading them to wait until to-morrow
night, and have been compelled to promise that we will not under
any circumstances delay our departure longer than that. We propose
therefore to take a few hours' sleep, and then to start upon a
final search.

September 20th, evening.--I crossed the ice this morning with
a party of men exploring the southern part of the floe, while Mr.
Milne went off in a northerly direction. We pushed on for ten or
twelve miles without seeing a trace of any living thing except a
single bird, which fluttered a great way over our heads, and which
by its flight I should judge to have been a falcon. The southern
extremity of the ice field tapered away into a long narrow spit
which projected out into the sea. When we came to the base of this
promontory, the men halted, but I begged them to continue to the
extreme end of it, that we might have the satisfaction of knowing
that no possible chance had been neglected.

We had hardly gone a hundred yards before M`Donald of Peterhead
cried out that he saw something in front of us, and began to