3^6 A P P E N D I X I. 



put to fea, and fteered until the 28th N. E. by N. E. 

 ^ E. Here he obfervcd the variation of the compafs 

 afliore, and found it to be 11° i5''Eaft. The 28th a 

 contrary wind, which was followed by a calm, obliged 

 him to come to an anchor, and kept him ftationary 

 until the loth of Auguft, when a favourable breeze 

 fpringing up he fet fail ; he then endeavoured to fleer 

 at fome dilhuice from fliore, holding a more Eailerly 

 courfe, and N. E. by E. But the veflel was impeded by 

 large bodies of floating ice, and a ftrong current, which 

 feemed to bear Weilward at the rate of a verft an hour. 

 Thefe circumftances very much retarded his courfe. On 

 the 18th, the weather being thick and foggy, he found 

 himfelf uncxpedtedly near the coaft with a number of 

 ice iilands before him, which on the 19th entirely fur- 

 rounded and hemmed in the velTel. He continued in 

 that fituation, and in a continual fog, until the 23d, 

 when he got clear, and endeavoured by fteering N. E. 

 to regain the open fea, which was much lefs clogged 

 v/ith ice than near the fliore. He was forced how- 

 ever, by contrary winds, S. E. and E. among large 

 malTes of floating ice. This drift of ice being pafled, 

 he again flood to the N. E. in order to double She- 

 latflcoi Nofs "■'•'■; but before he could reach the iflands 



* He does not feem to have been deterred from proceeding b)" any 

 fuppofed difficulty in paffing Shelatfkoi Nofs, but to have veered about 

 merely on account of the late feafon of the year. Shelatfkoi Nofs is 

 fo called from t1ie Silielagen, a tribe of the Tfchutfici, and has been 

 fuppofed to be the fame as Tfchukotfkoi Nofs. S. R. G. III. p. 52. 



lying 



