Lewis: February 3, 1805

3rd of February Sunday 1805. a fine day; the blacksmith again commences
his opperations. we were visited by but few of the natives today. the
situation of our boat and perogues is now allarming, they are firmly
inclosed in the Ice and almost covered with snow. The ice which incloses
them lyes in several stratas of unequal thicknesses which are seperated by
streams of water. this peculiarly unfortunate because so soon as we cut
through the first strata of ice the water rushes up and rises as high as
the upper surface of the ice and thus creates such a debth of water as
renders it impracticable to cut away the lower strata which appears firmly
attatched to, and confining the bottom of the vessels. the instruments we
have hitherto used has been the ax only, with which, we have made several
attempts that proved unsuccessful) from the cause above mentioned. we then
determined to attempt freeing them from the ice by means of boiling water
which we purposed heating in the vessels by means of hot stones, but this
expedient proved also fruitless, as every species of stone which we could
procure in the neighbourhood partook so much of the calcarious genus that
they burst into small particles on being exposed to the heat of the fire.
we now determined as the dernier resort to prepare a parse) of Iron spikes
and attatch them to the end of small poles of convenient length and
endeavour by means of them to free the vessels from the ice. we have
already prepared a large rope of Elk-skin and a windless by means of which
we have no doubt of being able to draw the boat on the bank provided we
can free from the ice.