272 ACCOUNT OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



equable pressure on every part of the vessel : but, 

 in other respects, it is the greatest pest they meet 

 with in all their labours : it is troublesome in the 

 fishery, and in the progress to the fishing ground ; 

 it is often the means of besetment, as it is called, 

 and thence the primary cause of every other cala- 

 mity. Heavy ice, many feet in thickness, and in 

 detached pieces of from 50 to 100 tons weight each, 

 though crowded together in the form of a pack, 

 may be penetrated, in a favourable gale, with to- 

 lerable despatch ; whilst a sheet of bay-ice, of a few 

 inches only in thickness, with the same advantage 

 of wind, will often arrest the progress of the ship, 

 and render her in a few minutes immoveable. If 

 this ice be too strong to be broken by the weight of 

 a boat, recourse must be had to sawing, an opera- 

 tion slow and laborious in the extreme. 



When the warmth of the season has rotted the 

 bay-ice, the passage to the northward can generally 

 be accomplished with a very great saving of liibour. 

 Therefore it was, the older fishers seldom or never 

 used to attempt it before the 10th of May, and fo- 

 reign fishers in the present day, are in general late. 

 Sometimes late arrivals are otherwise beneficial ; 

 since it frequently happens, in close seasons, that 

 ships entering the ice about the middle of May, ob- 

 tain an advantage over those preceding them, by 

 gaining a situation more eligible, on account of 

 its nearness to the land. Their predecessors, mean- 



