fixed in young ice. At the same time, the external sheets of ice on the north-east wheeled to the south, formed a junction with the ice south-east from us, and completely enclosed us. Until the 16th, we lay immoveable; a break of the bay ice then appeared about half a-mile from us, to attain which, we laboured with energy, and in eight hours had made a passage for the ship. On the 18th, we pursued the same opening to its eastern extremity, and endeavoured, but without success, to force through a narrow neck of ice, into another opening leading further in the same direction. On the 20th, in accomplishing this object, we endured a heavy pressure of the bay ice, which shook the ship in an alarming manner. The next day we made a small advance; and on the 22d, after a fatiguing effort in passing through the midst of an aggregation of floes against the wind, we obtained a channel which led us several miles to the south-eastward. On the 23d, we lay at rest together with four other ships. The day following, having sawn a place for the ship in a thin floe, we forced forward between two large masses, where bay ice unconsolidated had been compressed, until it had become 10 or 12 feet thick. We were assisted by about a hundred men from the accompanying ships, which followed close in our rear; and after applying all our mechanical powers during eight or nine hours, we passed the strait of about a furlong in length, and immediately the ice collapsed and rivetted the ships of our companions to the spot. As they declined our proffered assistance, (which indeed, at

this time, would have been quite unavailing), we determined to improve the advantage we had acquired, by proceeding to the utmost limits of the opening. Accordingly, we advanced, on various winding courses, amidst bay ice and fields, in narrow obscure passages, a distance of several miles. We then discovered a continuation of the navigation, which, although contracted to the space of a few yards, in a channel extending near a mile, between two immense sheets of ice, we determined to attempt to pass on. The prospect was indeed appalling; but, perceiving indications of the enlargement of the passage, rather than the contrary, we advanced under a press of sail, driving aside some disengaged lumps of ice that opposed us, and shortly accomplished our wishes in safety. Here, an enlivening prospect presented itself: to the extreme limits of the horizon, no interruption was visible. We made a predetermined signal to the ships we had left, indicative of our views. In two hours, however, our sanguine expectations of an immediate release, received a check, for we then met with fields in the act of collapsing and completely barring our progress. As the distance across was scarcely a mile, and the sea to appearance clear beyond it, the interruption was most tantalizing. We waited at the point of union, in the hope of the separation of the two fields; and on the morning of the 26th of May, our anxiety was happily relieved by the wished-for division of the ice. The ship, propelled by a brisk wind, darted through the strait, and entered a sea,

which we considered the termination of our difficulties. After steering three hours to the southeastward, as directed by the northern ice, we were concerned to discover, that our conclusions had been premature. An immense pack opened on our view, stretching directly across our track. There was no alternative, but forcing through it: we therefore pushed forward into the least connected part. By availing ourselves of every advantage in sailing, where sailing was practicable, and boring or drifting, where the pieces of ice were too compact, we at length reached the leeward part of a narrow channel, in which we had to ply a considerable distance against the wind. In performing this, the wind, which had hitherto blown a brisk breeze from the north, was increased to a strong gale: the ship was placed in such a critical situation, that we could not for above an hour accomplish any reduction of the sails, and she was thus alarmingly oppressed while I was personally engaged performing the duty of a pilot from the top-mast-head, the agitation and bending of the mast was so uncommon, that I was seriously alarmed for its stability. At length we were enabled to reef our sails, and for a while proceeded with less danger. We continued to manœuvre among the ice, according as its separation was most considerable. Our direction was now east, then north for several hours, then easterly 10 or 15 miles;-when, after 18 hours of the most difficult, and occasionally hazardous sailing, in which the ship received some hard blows from the ice; after pursuing a

devious course nearly ninety miles, and accomplishing a distance on a direct north-east course of about forty miles; we found ourselves at the very margin of the sea, separated only by a narrow sea stream. The waves were so great without, and the wind so violent, that we dared not to hazard an attempt to force through this remaining obstacle. After waiting about thirty hours, on the morning of the 28th of May the weather cleared, and the wind abated. The sea stream, which, the preceding day, did not exceed two hundred yards in breadth, was generally augmented to upwards of a mile broad. One place alone was visible, where the breadth was less considerable; to that we directed our course, forced the ship into it, and by prompt and vigorous exertions were enabled to surmount every difficulty, and accomplish our final escape into the free ocean.

I have been thus minute in the relation of the progress of our extrication from an alarming, though not very uncommon, state of besetment, both for the purpose of giving a faint idea of the difficulties and dangers which those engaged in the whale-fishery have occasionally to encounter, and also more particularly to shew the extraordinary manner in which ships are imperceptibly immured amidst the ice, by the regularity of its drift to the south-westward.

From this narrative it will appear, that, notwithstanding we only penetrated 25 or 30 miles on our ingress, and among ice most widely disposed; yet, before our regress was accomplished, we had passed on a direct course a dis

tance

1. When the wind blows forcibly across a solid pack or field of ice, its power is much diminished ere it traverses many miles: insomuch, that a storm will frequently blow for several hours on one side of a field, before it be perceptible on the other; and, while a storm prevails in open water, ships beset within sight will not experience one-half of its severity.

It is not uncommon for the ice to produce the effect of repulsing and balancing an assailing wind. Thus, when a severe storm blows from the sea, directly towards the main body of ice, an opposite current will sometimes prevail on

the borders of the ice; and such conflicting winds have been observed to counterpoise each other a few furlongs distant from the ice, for several hours: the violence of the one being, as it were, subdued by the frigorific repulsion and lesser force of the other. The effect resulting, is singular and manifest.

2. The moist and temperate gale from the southward, becomes chilled on commixture with the northern breeze, and discharges its surplus humidity in the thickest snow. As the quantity of the snow depends considerably on the difference of temperature of the two assimilating streams of air, it follows, that the largest proportion must be precipitated on the exterior of the main body of ice, where the contrast of temperature is the greatest: and since that contrast must be gradually diminished, as the air passes over the gelid surface of the ice, much of its superabundant moisture must generally be discharged before it reaches the interior. Hence we can account for the fewness of the clouds,-the consequent brightness of the atmosphere,—and the rareness of storms, in situations far immured among the northern ice.

From this consideration, it might be supposed, that after the precipitation of a certain small depth of snow on the interior ice, the atmosphere could alone replenish its moisture from the same surface, and that whatever changes of temperature might occur, it could only discharge the same again: or, in other words, that the very same moisture would be alternately evaporated and depo

ing to a limited depth of snow. Now this would assuredly be the case, if nothing more than the same moisture evaporated from the snowy surface of ice were again deposited. But, it must be observed, that notwithstanding winds from the north, east, or west, may not furnish any considerable quantity of snow; and that although those warm and humid storms which blow from the south, may afford a large proportion of their humidity to the exterior ice; yet, as the temperature of the northern regions would be gradually elevated by the long continuance of a southerly gale, the advance of the wind must in consequence be farther and farther before it be reduced to the temperature of the ice; and, therefore, some snow would continue to be precipitated to an increasing and unlimited extent.

Hence, as winds blowing from the north must be replaced by air neither colder nor less damp, and as every commixture with warmer streams must produce an increased capacity for moisture; therefore no wind can occasion a detraction of vapour from the circumpolar regions: on the contrary, as the snow deposited on the interior ice by southerly storms, (from the nature of the circumstances), must be derived from evaporations out of the sea; it is evident, that there must be an increase of snow in the icy latitudes, and that we cannot possibly determine any limit beyond which it may be affirmed that no snow can be deposited.

3. On approaching a pack, field, or other compact aggregation of

blink is seen whenever the horizon is tolerably free from clouds, and in some cases even under a thick sky. The ice-blink consists in a stratum of a lucid whiteness, which appears in that part of the atmosphere next the horizon. It is evidently occasioned thus: those rays of light which strike on the snowy surface of the ice, are reflected into the superincumbent air, where they become visible; but the light which falls on the sea is in a great measure absorbed, and the superincumbent air retains its native ethereal hue. Hence, when the ice-blink occurs under the most favourable circumstances, it affords to the eye a beautiful and perfect map of the ice, 20 or 30 miles beyond the limit of direct vision, but less distinct in proportion as the air is hazy. The ice-blink not only shews the figure of the ice, but enables the experienced observer to judge, whether the ice thus pictured be field or packed ice: if the latter, whether it be compact or open, bay or heavy ice. Field ice affords the most lucid blink, accompanied with a tinge of yellow; that of packs is more purely white; and of bay ice greyish. The land, on account of its snowy covering, likewise occasions a blink, which is yellowish, and not much unlike that produced by the ice of fields.

4. The ice operates as a powerful equaliser of temperature. In the 80th degree of north latitude, at the edge of the main body of ice, with a northerly gale of wind, the cold is not sensibly greater than in the 70th degree, under similar circumstances.

5. The reciprocal action of the

ice and the sea on each other, is particularly striking, whichever may have the ascendancy. If, on the one hand, the ice be arranged with a certain form of aggregation, and in due solidity, it becomes capable of resisting the turbulence of the ocean, and can, with but little comparative diminution or breaking, suppress its most violent surges. Its resist ance is so effectual, that ships sheltered by it rarely find the sea disturbed by swells. On the other hand, the most formidable fields yield to the slightest grown swell, and become disrupted into thousands of pieces; and ice of only a few weeks growth, on being assailed by a turbulent sea, is broken and annihilated with incredible celerity. Ice, which for weeks has been an increasing pest to the whale-fisher, is sometimes removed in the space of a few hours. The destruction is in many cases so rapid, that to an inexperienced observer, the occurrence seems incredible, and rather an illusion of fancy, than a matter of fact. Suppose a ship immoveably fixed in bay ice, and not the smallest opening to be seen: after a lapse of time sufficient only for a moderate repose, imagine a person rising from his bed,-when, behold, the insurmountable obstacle has vanished! Instead of a sheet of ice expanding unbroken to the verge of the horizon on every side, an undulating sea relieves the prospect, wherein floats the wreck of the ice, reduced apparently to a small fraction of its original bulk! This singular occurrence I have more than once been a witness to.

That ice should be forming or increasing, when exposed to the

swells of the ocean, while the annihilation of bay ice is so sudden and complete, might seem an anomaly or impossibility, were the circumstances passed over in silence. It must be observed, that the operation of a swell is merely to rend the bay ice in pieces, while its destruction is principally effected by the attrition of those pieces against each other, and the washing of the wind-lipper. Herein the essential difference consists: pancake ice is formed in masses so small and so strong, that the swell will not divide them; and the effect of the wind-lipper is repressed by the formation of sludge on its seaward margin. Hence whenever ice does occur in agitated waters, its exterior is always sludge, and its interior pancake ice, the pieces of which gradually increase in size with the distance from the edge.

When a swell occurs in crowded, yet detached ice, accompanied with thick weather and storm, it presents one of the most dangerous and terrific navigations that can be conceived. Each lump of ice, by its laborious motion, and its violent concussions of the water, becomes buried in foam, which, with its rapid drift, and the attendant horrid noise, inspires the passing mariner with the most alarming impressions; whilst the scene before him is, if possible, rendered more awful by his consciousness of the many disasters which have been occasioned by similar dangers.

On the approximations towards the

Poles, and on the possibility of reaching the North Pole. Although I am sensible, that already