WINTER ICE. 157 



forts of the now vanquished Gulf Stream to dis- 

 solve it. It rapidly sweeps round the coast, over- 

 lapping first Black Point and the Thousand Isl- 

 ands, then Hvalfiske Point and up Stour Fiord, 

 where it meets with another stream of ice coming 

 in by Thymen's Straits ; lastly, enveloping South 

 Cape, it extends up the west coast until it meets, 

 about Prince Charles 1 Foreland, another vast body 

 of ice, which has traveled round Hakluyt's Head- 

 land ; and Spitzbergen is enveloped for the winter. 



I believe that the sea itself, to the south and west 

 of Spitzbergen, would not freeze over far to the out- 

 side of the shallow bays and gulfs, were it not thus 

 crowded and encumbered with heavy drift-ice, con- 

 tinually swept down from the colder regions to the 

 north and east. 



Once the Arctic current fairly gains this pre- 

 ponderance over the Gulf Stream, it is quite incon- 

 ceivable how rapidly the ice sweeps round the coast 

 and fills up all the bays before it. I have been told 

 that a very few days suffice to surround the whole 

 of Spitzbergen with an impenetrable barrier ; and 

 I can readily understand that such must be the 

 case, for, in the end of August, we found so strong 

 a current setting round Black Point, that six men 

 pulling their hardest could not move the boat 

 against it ; and I am positive that I have seen the 

 current running among the Thousand Islands at 

 the rate of seven or eight miles an hour ! 



"Woe betide the luckless vessel which at this crit- 



