CAPTAIN PHIPPS' VOYAGE. 155 



been hewn with an axe, were noticed on the shore. These had, undoubtedly, drifted out 

 from some of the great rivers of the mainland. While here they wounded a sea-horse, 

 which immediately dived, and brought up a whole army of others to the rescue. They 

 attacked the boat, which was nearly upset and stove in, and wrested an oar from one of 

 the sailors. 



On July 30th the weather was exceedingly lovely, and the scene around them, says 

 Captain Phipps, " beautiful and picturesque; the two ships becalmed in a large bay, with 

 three apparent opening's between the islands that formed it, but everywhere surrounded 

 with ice as far as we could see, with some streams of water ; not a breath of air ; the water 

 perfectly smooth; the ice covered with snow, low and even, except a few broken pieces 

 near the edges; the pools of water in the middle of the pieces were frozen over with 

 young- ice." On August 1st the ice began to press in, and places which had before been 

 flat and almost level with the water were forced higher than the main-yards of the vessels. 

 The crews were set to work to try and cut out the ships, and they sawed through ice 

 sometimes as much as twelve feet thick, but without effecting their escape. Meantime 

 the ships drifted with the ice into fourteen fathoms, and Captain Phipps, greatly alarmed, 

 at one time proposed to abandon the ships and betake to the boats. On August 7th, 

 keeping their launch out and ready for emergencies, they crowded all sail on the vessels, 

 and three days later, after incurring much danger, reached the open water, and anchored 

 in Fair Haven, Spitzbergen. A remarkably grand iceberg,* or, more properly, glacier, 

 was observed here. The face towards the sea was nearly perpendicular, and about 300 feet 

 high, with a cascade of water issuing from it. The contrast of the dark mountains and 

 white snow, with the beautiful green colour of the near ice, made a very pleasing and 

 uncommon picture. Phipps describes an iceberg which had floated from this glacier and 

 grounded in twenty-four fathoms (144 feet). It was fifty feet above the surface of the 

 water. 



Captain Phipps did not pursue his investigations farther, but bore for England, which 

 he reached late in September. The unfavourable termination of his voyage did not deter 

 the Government from other efforts. Another voyage was ordered, and the celebrated 

 navigator, Captain James Cook, appointed to the command. The object was to attempt 

 once more the north-west passage, but in a new manner. Hitherto all efforts had been 

 made from the Atlantic side; on this occasion the plan was reversed, and the vessels were 

 to enter the Polar seas from the Pacific Ocean. The two vessels employed, the Resolution 

 and Discovery, are now historically famous from the extensive voyages made in them, in 

 the Pacific more particularly. The first was commanded by Cook, and the latter by Captain 

 Clerke. By an Act of Parliament then outstanding a reward of 20,000 was held out 

 to ships belonging to any of His Majesty's subjects which should make the passage, but 

 it excluded the vessels of the Royal Navy. This was now amended to include His Majesty's 

 ships, and a further reward of 5,000 offered to any vessel which should approach within 

 one degree of the North Pole. 



* In several of the older Arctic works glaciers and icebergs are confounded. The fact is that the latter, or 

 at all events the larger number of the latter, are born of the former. They are masses of ice which have become 

 detached at the sea end and have floated away. 



