72 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. III. 



respect of animal life, the Arctic regions of the globe 

 essentially differ from those within the Antarctic 

 Circle, where all appears to be stillness, silence, and 

 solitude. 



On the 7th of June the ships left Magdalena 

 Bay, and were hampered with fragments of ice, 

 usually called brash-ice, which, as they proceeded, 

 became thicker and more solid, and indeed impe- 

 netrable ; but a breeze opened and dispersed it, and 

 carried the ships into clear water. In going west- 

 erly they fell in with several whale ships, by which 

 they learned that the ice in that quarter was quite 

 compact, and that fifteen vessels were beset in it. 

 Buchan, therefore, stood to the northward. They 

 passed Cloven Cliff — a remarkable isolated rock, 

 which marks the north-western boundary of Spitz- 

 bergen, and also Red Bay, when they were stopped 

 by the ice closing the channel between it and the 

 shore, and became firmly fixed. By great exertions, 

 however, they got into the floe of ice, where they 

 remained thirteen days, when the field began to 

 separate, and to set to the southward, at the rate of 

 three miles an hour ; and the ships got into an open 

 sea, where however they were not long permitted 

 to remain, and took shelter in Fair Haven. 



Finding from the view afforded by the hills that 

 the ice was driving to the northward, they again 

 put to sea on the 6th July, and sailed as far as 

 80° 15' N., where the same impenetrable barrier ob- 

 structed their further progress. On the following 



