Enclosing to Captain Lyon the replies of the medical gentlemen, I now also requested his opinion whether, under existing circumstances, he still considered it expedient to adopt the measure originally intended, with respect to the separation of the two ships.  I had scarcely despatched a letter to this effect, when, at 10 A.M. on the 8th, the ice about the Fury began to move, the pools breaking up, and the gravelled canal soon entirely closing.  A breeze springing up from the northward at this time, all sail was made upon the ship, and the ice gradually driving out as it detached itself from the shore, the Fury got into open water about one P.M.  The Hecla, however, still remained in the middle of her winter’s floe, which, though it moved a little with the rest at first, did not come out of the bay.  In the course of the afternoon, finding her still stationary, I determined to occupy the time in stretching over to the northward, for the purpose of examining the state of the fixed ice at the eastern mouth of the strait; and, arriving at its margin by ten P.M., found it attached to both shores from the northeastern part of Neerlo-naktoo across to Murray Maxwell Inlet.  It was the general opinion that this ice was in a more solid state than at the same time and place the preceding year, but its situation did not, I believe, differ half a mile from what it had then been.  As the sun went down nearly in the direction of the strait, we obtained from the masthead a distinct and extensive view in that quarter, and it is impossible to conceive a more hopeless prospect than this now presented.  One vast expanse of level solid ice occupied the whole extent of sea visible to the westward, and the eye wearied itself in vain to discover a single break upon its surface.

Having finished this examination, which at once destroyed every hope I had never ceased to indulge of a passage through the strait, we returned towards Igloolik to rejoin the Hecla.  It was not, however, till the morning of the 9th that we observed her to be moving out of the bay, when at length (for the first time, perhaps, that such an event ever occurred) she drove to sea in the middle of the floe.  Thus at the mercy of the ice, she was carried over the shoals off the southeast point of Igloolik in six and a half fathoms, but was then fortunately drifted into deeper water.  The swell on the outside was all that was wanting to break up her icy prison, which, separating at seven A.M., finally released her from confinement.

Having soon afterward received Captain Lyon’s answer to my communication, it was necessary for me to come to a final determination on the subject therein alluded to.  For various reasons, he advised that the Fury and Hecla should return to England together, as soon as such arrangements respecting the removal of stores and provisions, as I might judge proper to make, should be completed.