TO THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 27 
Farewell, and the mouth of the Strait on the Green- 
land side. 
We no sooner fell in with the ice this morning 
than flocks of the little divers, called Rotges ( Alea 
Alle, Lin.), were seen flying, swimming, and diving 
about in its vicinity. It would appear, that the neigh- 
bourhood of ice is the favourite haunt of these birds, 
for I do not remember to have seen any of them last 
year, except when we were amongst it, or at least at 
no great distance from it, and I believe none were 
seen this voyage until we made the ice. In fact, they 
might, with propriety, be called, the Ice-bird, and, if 
1 mistake not, they have been so denominated. 
Another species of diver was seen to-day for the first 
time this voyage, which, like the preceding, is seldom 
seen except in the vicinity of ice; it is called by 
seamen, Dovekey, (Colymbus Grylle, Lin.) 
Saturday, 19th. — It has been observed, that the 
colour of the water has changed since we got 
amongst the ice, for, instead of the clear blue colour 
of the ocean, it has been within these two days of a 
dirty brownish tinge, not unlike the colour of the 
sea at the estuary of large rivers. The temperature 
of the water is also very sensibly affected by the ice, 
for since we came amongst it, we find that the mer- 
cury seldom rises more than 4° above the freezing 
point ; the temperature of the air is likewise propor- 
tionably low, the extremes of the range of the ther- 
mometer, in the shade, for these two days, being be- 
tween 33° and 43°. The true variation of the compass 
was obtained to-day, by taking azimuths on a floe 
of ice, at such a distance from the ship as to be clear 
of all local attraction. ‘The result of these observ- 
ations gave 48° 40’ westerly variation. It may be said 
