444- WHALE-FISHERY. 



already assembled, some of which had made a very 

 profitable fishery on the day preceding our arrival. 

 Our latitude was at this time 78° 8' N., and longitude 

 2°10'W. 



As the whales had quitted this position, and as 

 I considered the situation not particularly desirable, 

 notwithstanding extensive spaces lay between the 

 different sheets of ice, the ship was allowed to drift 

 to the eastward all the night. The wind, however, 

 subsiding to a calm, in the morning of the 29th of 

 June, I found the ship was very little removed from 

 the place where she lay when I went to bed. I 

 soon perceived that the floes had approached each 

 other very considerably, and that they were still in 

 the act of closing. Fearful of being again heset, 

 and particularly in a situation where the ice was so 

 heavy, and at such a great distance from the sea, we 

 lowered four boats to tow the ship through an open- 

 ing at a short distance from us. At the very mo- 

 ment when we were about to enter it, it closed. 

 The John had just passed through it. Another 

 channel, of at least a mile in width, and scarcely 

 that distance from us, lying to the southward, we 

 immediately directed the ship towards it. Finding 

 as we advanced, that the northern floe was not only 

 setting towards the southern one, but was, at the 

 same time, revolving with a velocity nearly equal to 

 that of the ship, I was induced to lower all the 

 boats for the purposic of accelerating our progress. 



