150 APPENDIX. 



increased, until it had risen as high as the deck. 

 After about two hours, the velocity was diminished 

 to a state of rest ; and, soon afterwards, the two 

 sheets of ice receded from each other nearly as ra- 

 pidly as they had before advanced. The ship, in 

 this case, did not receive any injury ; but had the 

 ice been only half a foot thicker, she would proba- 

 bly have been wrecked. 



" In the month of May of the present year 

 (1813,) I witnessed a more tremendous scene. 

 Whilst navigating amidst the most ponderous ice 

 which the Greenland seas present, in the prospect 

 of making our escape from a state of besetme?it, 

 our progress was unexpectedly arrested by an 

 isthmus of ice, about a mile in breadth, formed 

 by the coalition of the point of an immense Jield 

 on the north, with that of an aggregation of floes 

 on the south. To the north field we moored the 

 ship, in the hope of the ice separating in this 

 place. I then quitted the ship, and travelled 

 . over the ice to the point of collision, to observe 

 the state of the bar which now prevented our re- 

 lease. I immediately discovered that the two 

 points had but recently met; that already a pro- 

 digious ma§s of rubbish had been squeezed upon 

 the top, and that the motion had not abated. 



