316 DISCOVERIES OF 1776 to 



had. On the 26th they again fell in with the 

 main body of the ice, appearing to be thick and 

 compact, and to extend from N.W. to E. by N. ; 

 the latitude then 69° 36\ longitude 184°. 



On the 27th, being close to the edge of the ice^ 

 Captain Cook went in a boat to examine it. He 

 found it to consist of loose pieces, so close toge- 

 ther as scarcely to admit the boat between them ; 

 it was all pure transparent ice, except the upper 

 surface, which was a little porous; it appeared to 

 be composed of frozen snow, and to have been all 

 formed at sea. The pieces were from forty or 

 fifty yards in extent to four or five, and the 

 larger pieces appeared to reach thirty feet or more 

 under the surface of the water. He considered it 

 improbable that so much ice could have been the 

 product of the preceding winter; and equally im- 

 probable that the little which remained of the 

 summer could destroy the tenth part of what then 

 subsisted of the mass ; he thinks indeed that the 

 sun contributes very little to the destruction of 

 such immense masses; that it is the wind, or 

 rather the waves raised by the wind, that brings 

 down the bulk of these huge masses, by grinding 

 one piece against another, and washing away 

 those parts that lie exposed to the surge of the 

 sea. Davis was of the same opinion nearly two 

 hundred years before. 



On the 29th the ships made the land of the 

 Asiatic continent, which, like the opposite coast 



