OF THE POLAR SEA. 



9 





Buss" is laid down in the old, and continued in the Admiralty 

 charts. Mr. Bell, the commander of the Eddystone, informed me, 

 that the pilot, who brought his ship down the Thames, told him that 

 he had gained soundings in twelve feet somewhere hereabout ; and 

 I am rather inclined to attribute the very unusual and cross sea we 

 had in this neighbourhood, to the existence of a bank, than to the 

 effect of a gale of wind which we had just before experienced ; and I 

 cannot but regret that the commander of the ship did not try for 

 soundings at frequent intervals. 



By the 25th July we had opened the entrance of Davis' Straits, and 



in the afternoon we spoke the Andrew Marvel, bound to England 



with a cargo of fourteen fish. The master informed us that the ice 

 had been heavier this season in Davis' Straits than he had ever recol- 

 lected, and that it lay particularly close to the westward, being con- 

 nected with the shore to the northward of Besolution Island, and 

 extending from thence within a short distance of the Greenland 

 coast ; that whales had been abundant, but the ice so extremely 

 cross, that few could be killed. His ship, as well as several others, 

 had suffered material injury, and two vessels had been entirely crushed 

 between vast masses of ice in latitude 74° 40' N., but the crews 

 were saved. We inquired anxiously, but in vain, for intelligence 

 respecting Lieutenant Parry, and the ships under his command ; but 

 as he mentioned that the wind had been blowing strong from the 

 northward for some time, which would, probably, have cleared Baffin's 

 Bay of ice, we were disposed to hope favourably of his progress. 



The clouds assumed so much the appearance of icebergs this 

 evening as to deceive most of the passengers and crew ; but their 

 imaginations had been excited by the intelligence we had received 

 from the Andrew Marvel, that she had only parted from a cluster of 

 them two days previous to our meeting. 



On the 27th, being in latitude 57° 44' 21" N., longitude 47° 31' 14" 

 W., and the weather calm, we tried for soundings but did not reach 



c 



