y2 JOURNAL. 



Auguft. The nature of the ice was a principal obje^ of at- 



tention in this climate. We found always a great fwell 

 near the edge of it ; but whenever we got within 

 the loofe ice, the water was conftantly Imooth. The 

 loofe fields and flaws, as well as the interior part of the 

 fixed ice, were flat, and low : with the wind blowing on 

 the ice, the loofe parts were always, to ufe the phrafe 

 of the Greenlandmen, packed', the ice at the edges ap- 

 pearing rough, and piled up ; this roughnefs and height 

 I imagine to proceed from the fmailer pieces being thrown 

 up by the force of the fea on the folid part. During the 

 time that we were fall amongft the Seven Iflands, we had 

 frequent opportunities of obferving the irrefiftible force of 

 the large bodies of floating ice. We have often feen a 

 piece of feveral acres fquare lifted up between two much 

 larger pieces, and as it were becoming one with them; 

 and afterwards this piece fo formed afting in the fame 

 manner upon a fecond and third ; which would probably 

 have continued to be the effeQ, till the whole bay had 

 been fo filled with ice that the different pieces could have 

 had no motion, had not the ftream taken an unexpeded 

 turn, and fet the ice out of the bay. 



19th. Weighed in the morning with the wind at 

 N N E. Before we got out of the bay it fell calm. I ob- 

 ferved for thefe three or four days, about eleven in the 

 evening, an appearance of dulk. 



20th. 



