Elisha Kent Kane Diary

and if we add to these the reindeer the hare and the seal we have the entire zoology of our harbour

With June however came in near abundance with the ? 1st - the long tailed duck (Harelda Glacialis ) to the interval between ice foot and flood and a sin= gle pair of great northern divers were seen flying overhead to the North and East.

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[margin] 4th week

All of these more numerous. The King and Long Tailed Duck are shot daily. The tern resort to Butler Island and like their allied gulls keep up an incessant screeching. Seal are numerous on the shores and the ivory gull -- seeking per= haps the eggs of the Burgomaster and the tern come in scanty numers to our harbour.

In the vegetable kindom -- so peculiarly the index of season -- the changes were very mar= ked. Before this month -- the dry stems of the andromeda were becoming green at their extremities. Stone crops were in russet exterior but in active growth within their fol= =ded [blank space]. The willows had budded and their catkins made a tolerable show when placed in proper exposures. But except these and a few others of kindred endurance -- the quickening of the ardent summer had been unavailing.

But with this June month, all the flower [?] of this starved region broke upon us. The lichens began to brighten after the winter's rust. The orange red scutella of the [blank space] studded the rocks and the cetraria peep out from the thawed snow beds. The heaths make a rich carpet of flowers. Poppy ranunculs saxi= frage chickweed (Cerastium) &c. &-crowd between the creeping willows. The mosses among the last to renew their growth begin to feel the increasing infiltration of melted snows and the crannies of the rocks are alive with a tufted grass (unknown) the Pera -- the Rumex (R. Digynus) the Cochleania and perhaps a [smudged]

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scanty half formed sods -- were with [gentium?] & [Pamya?] among our latests harvests -- The poppy last. For the changes of the ice, I cannot record so rapid a progress. Our outside floe is still firm and although the surface is studded with water pools the solidity of the mass is not to an experieced ice eye at all in keeping with the hoped for changes of the season.

The quantity of snow which fell during the past winter and spring was so mea= =gre as not to give us means of banking up our vessel. It did not exceed 8 inches for 9 months. The expected torrents which were to pour down from the ravines failed us and it was not until the 29th or nearly end of this month that the snows began to discharge in rivulets from the hills. The land foot or ice=belt is therefore un= broken.

The ices which line it, however, are affected by the sun. They no longer rise into towering pinnacles and spires. Their bases have been destroyed by the tides and their exposed surfaces thawed by the sun. Thus they have sunk into a broken mass of water sodden ice which invests the true ice=belt and makes it dangerous and difficult to reach the shore. Among this ice I nearly lost my life.

For the legitimate incidents of the Expedition, this has been the closing as well as the decisive month. On the 1st Dr. Hayes and our team of seven dogs returned from N. and S.W. coasts. He penetrated the heavy hummocks of the bay -- which know no equals hitherto recorded for magnitude & disturbace.

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and completed the delineation of the coast until it was connected to the S. and W. with the highest positive determination of Inglefield.

On the 26th the East Greenland Party under McGeary and Bonsall re= turned. Well worn out but successful. They move the termination of Greenland to the N.o and establish valuable geographical material confirmatory of my own results.

Morton is still out with the dog team. I know my man and anticipate for him the discovery of a channel and the completion of the entire circuit of Smith's Sound. While yet on my back I taught him to use the sextant and from his intelligence I can rely on his results.

So ends June - the eleventh month of our ice besetment and as yet no pros= pect of escape. We look to July - the month of greatest change in the ice to give us the conditions essential to possible liberation. The water could nnot be see a week ago - within an ob= served radius of twenty five miles. All of this distance together with the heavy ice of Rensselaer Bay must break up before our departure.

July 1 Sat.

July

July is every where within the arctic circle looked upon as the month of greatest thaw The young ice which formed (in the earlier ? months) during the hours of low Sun arrests or retards the constancy of the process of dissolution. During July little forms. Rain is frequent and the melted snows begin to pour in torrents from the hills.

This was the case of us nearly to (access of water was most sudden. It came to us in) a single day. As just a low murmer like a distant water fall began to fill our solitude. Soon we distinguished the washing roar of the rapid and by to day the pent up waters fill every valley. A visit to the glacier shows no perculation from or around it but the ravine on either side has commenced a discharge of water which expands over the Ice=fort and finally reached the Bay.

Sunday 2nd

Again our quiet Sunday and after [fogs?] in the morning the clearing up of the evening time.

M. Sonntag and myself walked well over to Bessie Wood Fiord and from an elevated plateau looked upon a large [Shean?] than we had yet seen. It then occurred to me that the largest river contri=buting to our Bay should have a name I christened it after my well regarded friend Charlotte Wood.

Charlotte Wood river has its sources in the great interior glacier - it winds through an area of rugged desolation and reached our Bay through a gorge of wild [impulsive?] beauty. I remember it once during our long winter - lit up by moonlight it was then a frozen line of dazzling white like melted silver