The fog continued too thick to allow us to move till six A.M., at which time we resumed our journey.  There was a broad and distant haze-bow of very white and dazzling light directly opposite the sun.  The weather being still too foggy to see more than a quarter of a mile ahead, it was with considerable difficulty that we could proceed on a tolerably straight course.  To effect this, it was necessary to determine the point on which we were walking by the bearing of the sun, which was still visible, and the apparent time, and then to take a mark ahead by which our course was to be directed.  From the thickness of the weather, however, it was necessary to repeat this operation every five or ten minutes, which, together with the uniform whiteness and intense glare of the snow, became so extremely painful to the eyes, that Mr. Fisher and myself, who went ahead as guides, soon became affected with snow blindness, and the headmost man at the cart, whose business it was constantly to watch our motions, began to suffer in a similar manner from the same cause.

It may, perhaps, be conceived, then, under these circumstances, how pleasing was the relief afforded by our seeing, at eight A.M., a stripe of black or uncovered land ahead, which proved to be the bank of a ravine fifty or sixty feet deep and three hundred yards wide, on the north side of which we pitched the tents, having made good only one mile and a half, the snow being so soft and deep as to make it difficult to drag the cart through it.

The latitude observed here was 75 deg. 22’ 43”, and the longitude, by the chronometer, 111 deg. 14’ 26”; in which situation a cylinder of tin, containing an account of our visit, was deposited under a pile of stones eight feet high and seven feet broad at the base.

The wind increased to a fresh breeze from the S.S.E. on the 6th, with a sharp frost, making it very cold in the tents, which we therefore struck at four A.M., and at the distance of half a mile came to the summit of a hill overlooking what appeared to be a frozen sea before us.  We then descended the hill, with the intention of pushing forward to determine whether the white and level space before us was the sea or not.  We had not proceeded far, however, when the clouds began to gather heavily in the southeast, and shortly after snow and sleet began to fall.  Being unwilling, therefore, to allow the men’s clothes to be wet when there was no absolute occasion for it, we halted on a piece of dry ground, and, having built a wall six feet high to shelter us from the weather, pitched the tents very comfortably under the lee of it till the weather should allow us to proceed.