J787» LOWENORN, EGEDE, AND ROTHE. 341 



the nearest land, and forty miles from the most 

 northern part of it, the latitude being 65° 54' 18", 

 longitude S6° 51'. The coast extended from 

 N.N.E. to S.S.W. They saw nothing but rocks, 

 very high, pointed, and in most parts covered with 

 ice and snow, presenting a most dreary and 

 miserable spectacle ; and he observes, that if this 

 part of the coast be inhabited, the people must 

 acquire their means of sustenance in the interior 

 of the country, by hunting and by fishing in the 

 rivers, for he thinks they could not live on the sea- 

 coast on account of the mountains of ice which 

 surround it by land and by sea. * 



On the change of the current the ice began to 

 come down afresh from the north, which forced 

 them to leave the bay ; a task they accomplished 

 not without difficulty, and made sail for Iceland, 

 where they arrived on the 28th May. 



On the 8th June Lieutenant Egede set sail a 

 second time; but meeting with nothing but 

 mountains of ice, which it was impossible to pass, 

 or to find any opening to admit the vessel towards 

 the land beyond the ice, he put back into Iceland, 

 after an unsuccessful attempt of three weeks^. 

 On the 14th July and 25th August he again made 

 endeavours to pass through the ice, and to push on 

 towards the coast of Greenland; but meeting 

 continually with impenetrable ice, which prevented 

 him even from seeing the land, he was at last 

 forced to abandon the undertaking altogether, and 



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