142 Dr Latta's Observations on the Greenland Sea, 



lighter than usual, in consequence of the atmosphere having 

 been rendered more temperate by the currents of warmer air 

 coming up from the south. If the wind really did prevail from 

 that quarter, it follows that no ice could escape from Baffin's 

 Bay, but would accumulate there, completely covering the sea, 

 which might have been the cause why so many whales were seen 

 in the open sea to the south-westward. We may also mention, 

 in corroboration of this supposition, that when our shipwrecked 

 mariners, having travelled over the ice, reached the shore, they 

 found, in the huts, the unburied bodies of the native families, 

 who had apparently all perished from famine, having, in all pro- 

 bability, been deprived of the opportunity of catching those sea 

 animals on which they live, by the drifting in of the ice on the 

 coast by the continued southerly wind. 



. The whale-fisher seldom spends less than three, commonly 

 four, tedious months in " boring, warping^ and sawing"^ his 

 way through the entanglements of this icy channel, and if he 

 escapes shipwreck or permanent detention, he arrives at an open 

 sea to the westward, entering on the scene of his whaling opera- 

 tions about the end of July. The whales commonly remain in 

 these regions till August is well advanced, when they take their 

 departure southwards. Adjoining Lancaster Sound, as had 

 been noticed by Baffin himself, the land-tee under the sea li- 

 mits, of which v/hales take refuge, is commonly still fast to the 

 shore, — there the whaler commences a brisk attack on his prey, 

 — soon completes his cargo, — and in a few weeks, with a merry 

 heart, prepares to return home. The masses of ice which cause 

 so much embarrassment in his outward passage, have now yield- 

 ed to the benign influence of the season, and the ease of his 

 voyage homewards forms a pleasing contrast with his former 

 toils, and the same navigation which cost him months of anxious 

 labour before, is now effected in a few days. 



Now, what does such a view suggest ? Our ships sail about 

 the end of February or beginning of March, reach the ice 

 early in April, and generally do nothing till the beginning of 

 August. They are detained all that time by the ice, which 

 every hour threatens them with destruction, and which is reduc- 

 ed to an atom of what it was by the time they are clear of it. 

 Very little of the ice is destroyed during March, April, and 



