At last the change for which I have been so eagerly looking has arrived and we are steaming amongst floes of small area evidently broken by swell, and with edges abraded by contact.

The transition was almost sudden.

We made very good progress during the night with one or two checks and one or two slices of luck in the way of open water.

In one pool we ran clear for an hour, capturing 6 good miles.
This morning we were running through large continuous sheets of ice from 6 inches to 1 foot in thickness, with occasional water holes and groups of heavier floes.

This forenoon it is the same tale, except that the sheets of thin ice are broken into comparatively regular figures, none more than 30 yards across.