96 BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN. 



the same impenetrable barrier obstructed their further 

 progress. On the following day, however, so rapid 

 had been the motion of the ice during the night, that 

 channels of water were observed in every quarter, and 

 the wind was favorable for proceeding along one of the 

 open channels. Captain Buchan lost not a moment in 

 pushing his ship into one of these openings, spreading 

 every bail his masts would bear, and was cheerfully 

 followed by his enterprising consort, to the great joy 

 of all on board. In the evening, however, the channels 

 began to close again, arid the vessels were soon beset 

 and pressed close by the packed ice. This was the end 

 of their voyage northward, and the latitude gained 

 was 80 34' N. In vain they labored two days in drag- 

 ging the vessels with ropes and ice-anchors ; for, though 

 they had left the ice behind them, the current had car- 

 ried them back to the southward three miles, and it 

 was clear that all attempts to get one mile further to 

 the northward would be vain. 



Captain Buchan being now satisfied that he had given 

 the ice a fair trial in the vicinity of Spitzbergen, resolved 

 on standing over toward the coast of Greenland. Hav- 

 ing succeeded in getting the ships to the edge of the 

 pack, and sailing along it, a violent gale of wind came 

 on so suddenly that they were at once reduced to storm 

 staysails. The ice was setting fast upon them, and the 

 Dorothea being nearest to it, in order to escape imme- 

 diate shipwreck, it was deemed necessa y to take refuge 

 among it. The Trent followed her example, and dashed 

 into the " unbroken line of furious breakers, in which 

 immense pieces of ice were heaving and subsiding with 

 the waves, and dashing together with a violence which 

 nothing, apparently, but a solid body, could withstand, 

 occasioning such a noise that it was with the greatest 

 difficulty we could make our orders heard by the crew." 



