50 STATE OF GREENLAND, 



ported that they had observed fair, open seas before them 

 after they had gone a very httle way. 



In Jacob's Bay there is one very remarkable passage of 

 similar description ; so also one, if not more in North East 

 Bay ; and proceeding further north, the numerous sounds 

 up to the Women's Islands, and forward to the Devil's 

 Thumb, an isolated natural column, in 74° 53' north latitude, 

 various openings present themselves, which, no doubt, 

 lead to so many ways of traversing this Arctic Archipelago. 

 A few circumstances more will materially assist in this in- 

 quiry. The whale hunters are unanimously of opinion that 

 Greenland consists entirely of islands ; "for " say they, 

 " wherever chance or inclination led us, on almost any 

 part of the coast, we saw nothing to prevent us from sailing 

 as far inwards as we liked." The habits of the whale, who 

 is observed always running for some one or other of those 

 passages, and some, when stricken, dragging the boats so 

 far that the people witnessed open clear water to a bound- 

 less extent, are in a great degree confirmatory evidence of 

 the fact. But one circumstance, not the least curious in 

 natural history, is, that a whale, struck by a man at Green- 

 land, i. e. at Spitzbergen, escaped, and was in a short time 

 after killed, and taken by a relative of the same man, who 

 was then at Davis's Straits. This curious fact was deter- 

 mined by the harpoon, bearing the mark of the former, 

 being found in the body of the animal when taken. 



