Chap. VIII. PARRY'S THIRD VOYAGE. 239 



sunken rock. On the 17th July the ice began to 

 close round the ships. " From this time," Parry 

 says, " the obstructions from the quantity, magni- 

 tude, and closeness of the ice were such as to keep 

 our people almost constantly employed in heaving, 

 warping, or sawing through it; and yet with so 

 little success that, at the close of July, we had only 

 penetrated seventy miles to the westward." Here, 

 on the 1st August, being closely beset, a gale of 

 wind pressing the ice together, and overlaying mass 

 upon mass, " The Hecla received several very awk- 

 ward ' nips,' and was once fairly laid on her broad- 

 side by a strain which must inevitably have crushed 

 a vessel of ordinary strength." The 9th September 

 had arrived " before we succeeded in releasing our- 

 selves from the more than ordinary barrier of ice in 

 the middle of Baffin's Bay." 



They had continued their efforts to push to the 

 northward, but it was not till the 29th of August 

 that they reached the latitude 73° 15', longitude 

 63° 40', in which situation, from the experience 

 of 1819, they had reason to expect there would 

 scarcely have been any ice at this season. The 

 obstructions, however, continued till the 8th of 

 September, then in latitude 74° 7 r and longitude 

 69° 54', being about 110 miles to the N.N.W. of 

 the situation in which they cleared the " pack ' in 

 the year 1819. Forty miles from hence they 

 passed through the barrier of ice, after an unwearied 



