A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 207 



ing soon exposed his situation, both from the sound, and 

 the watery column driven up in respiration ; and the 

 hunters having pursued across the ice to the spot, soon 

 succeeded in dispatching their victim. 



Among the whales, on the 20th, taken, there was a young 

 one, about half grown ; and as this circumstance is rare 

 in Davis's Strait, though frequently occurring in the seas 

 around Spitzbergen, it would strongly support the opinion 

 that Greenland is terminable at a very low degree from 

 the pole ; nor would this presumption be misappHed if ex- 

 tended to the American continent, which reaches little, 

 if at all, further northward than the latitude of the Linnaean 

 Isles. In this sweep of the arctic region, some promon- 

 tory may hereafter be found to violate the line such as 

 Spitzbergen does ; but the fact of no land lying around 

 the pole may be fairly presumed ; and of this fact I have 

 to adduce a weighty proof from the observations com- 

 municated by one of the masters who proceeded so far 

 to the westward, being one of the five yesterday in 

 danger. 



" After clearing the ice, all to the north-west was heavy 

 open sea, the swell and current coming from that point, 

 and no obstruction appeared against proceeding as far 

 north as he pleased : at all events, a hundred miles further 

 (more than three degrees) were accessible." But as open 

 sea presents little chance of meeting with the whale, in a 



