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Tuesday July 21
Go aboard & finish dressing Berhams face with the lead wash.  Come back to dinner.  The boys start in the new boat except Mike, who stays to see the other boat off tomorrow.  She goes very well and soon gets into the canal.  In the afternoon the schooner Frances Steele comes in with Capt. Smith.  Go aboard & see the Captain and get two letters one from Capt Scammon & one from Stearns who has gone [east?[.  I find to my great surprise and regret that that scamp Ennis in San Franciso when the ship returned trumped up a charge against me of disobeying orders, or rather of not obeying his orders, and cut off 6 months of my pay so that instead of having 566 dollars to my credit I have but 16.  But I think I can make that right when I get down.

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Wednesday May 27, 68
River clear of ice near the fort, above & below sticks fast.  Make balls for my rifle.  Pack scientific outfit for the trip.  Skin 8 birds - and catalogue them.  Kurill goes over to the island in the evening.

Thursday May 28
Morning, go up to the little river to look at the barrier of ice.  Find an old canoe, make a rough paddle & cross the river.  Find some good fossils but the ice suddenly gives way and I drop them and run a race with the ice & water to the end of the point - on one side a perpendicular wall of rock & on the other a surging mass of ice & water rapidly rising over the six feet of beach between.  Reach the point just in time to save myself & the canoe and the axe, which I left in a log on the beach, is in imminent danger of being car-