or 70 deg., to the open air, though
the change in one minute was in several instances 120 deg. of temperature.
Cold, however, as January was, yet the following month, though, as we have
already observed, it again exhibited the sun to them, was much colder; on
the 15th of February the thermometer fell to 55 deg. below Zero, and remained
for fifteen hours not higher than 54 deg.. Within the next fifteen hours it
gradually rose to 34 deg.. But though the sun re-appeared early in February,
they had still a long imprisonment to endure; and Captain Parry did not
consider it safe to leave their winter quarters till the 1st of August,
when they again sailed to the westward: their mode of proceeding was the
same as that which they had adopted the preceding year, viz. crawling along
the shore, within the fast ice; in this manner they got to the west end of
Melville Island. But all their efforts to proceed further were of no avail.
Captain Parry was now convinced, that somewhere to the south-west of this
there must be an immoveable obstacle, which prevented the ice dispersing in
that direction, as it had been found to do in every other part of the
voyage.
At last, on the 16th of August, further attempts were given up, and Captain
Parry determined to return to the eastward, along the edge of the ice, in
order that he might push to the southward if he could find an opening.
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