84 Freminville's Voyage to the North Pole. 



fort to find a passage through the solid ice, advancing as far 

 north as possible ; in this hope, we kept continually bearing 

 up along the chain of immoveable ice that stretched to the 

 N.W. 



In fact, we reached the 80th degree of latitude, without 

 gaining any inlet or opening. The whole vast plain, or rather 

 continent of ice, lies in a direction to the west. We coasted 

 it for several days without finding any break or interruption, 

 and I am convinced that it joins all along to the ice that bor- 

 ders the coast of Greenland. 



I shall not attempt to describe the impressions that the* soli- 

 tary and dreary aspect of this icy continent produced on our 

 minds. Its situation on the limits of our globe, the profound 

 silence pervading its vast domain, the total absence of animal 

 life every thing seemed to exhibit an image of death, and of 

 all nature in mourning. The gloomy spectacle was not, 

 however, without a sort of peculiar attraction ; masses of ice, 

 illumined in different modes, reflecting the light in a thousand 

 different ways, from the odd assemblage of their needle points 

 or ends ; their fractures, their varied shapes, presented views 

 as uncommon as they were astonishing. We used frequently to 

 compare them to the ruins of some most extensive capital dis- 

 cerned at a distance ; the imagination taking wing, would de- 

 pict colonnades, towers, steeples, castles, fortresses, &o. In the 

 remote back-ground appeared a chain of lofty mountains of ice 

 that terminated the horizon. 



There being no prospect of penetrating further north, and 

 it being impossible to touch at Spitzberg, we resolved on 

 steering southward, having taken and burnt, in the north 

 seas, fifteen whale-fishery snips. 



Here we may remark, that Captain Phipps did not encoun- 

 ter the chain of ice till he was north of Spitzberg, whereas it 

 blocked up our passage at the 77th degree. 



In the course of our navigation in these parts, we never had 

 a heavy sea, though the wind was frequently very high ; the 

 waves were, in some measure, fettered under the mass of ice. 

 We could observe, however, after Captain Phipps, on Hearing 

 the great banks, even in calm weather, big surges coming 

 gently from the south. 



In those high latitudes the sky is seldom so clear as to be 

 able to make astronomical observations. We availed ourselves 

 of every favourable circumstance that occurred, but it was 

 only three times that we could take the meridian altitude of 

 the sun at midnight. 



Scarcity and scorbutic diseases called for prompt relief; 



