308 HON. CAPTAIN PHIPPS. 



a.d. course, and very narrowly escaped being beset 



1773 ' by the ice, which was in rapid motion, and 



which indeed enclosed the ships in a manner that 



rendered it necessary to have recourse to ropes 



and ice-anchors to extricate them. 



Foiled in an eastern direction, Captain Phipps 

 determined to try in the northwest, and, after 

 contending with fogs and blowing weather, he 

 succeeded in attaining the latitude of 80° 36', 

 which was the most northerly point ascertained 

 by observation, which he reached during the 

 voyage ; this was in longitude 2° 2' E. He was 

 not able, however, to proceed thus far without 

 considerable difficulty, and the risk of being 

 beset, for the ships were already surrounded by 

 loose ice. The weather was at this time cold and 

 wet, and the duty of the ship becoming very 

 harassing to the seamen, many of them were laid 

 up with pains in their limbs. After searching in 

 vain in every quarter for an opening that would 

 admit of the expedition proceeding to the north- 

 ward, and having run ten degrees along the edge 

 of the pack, and in that space made several 

 attempts to push through it, and having always 

 encountered an impenetrable body of ice a short 

 distance within the loose pieces at the edge, 

 Captain Phipps directed his course once more to 

 the eastward, to ascertain whether what he 



