NEAR HEINLOPEN STRAITS. 227 



likely to be caused by the mere return of the regu- 

 lar tide down Stour Fiord. 



The day was tolerably clear, but there was no 

 hill near us on which we could ascend to obtain a 

 more extended view in that direction. From the 

 top of the highest rocks we could find we could see 

 no high land to the eastward, nor any thing but low, 

 flattish, rugged hillocks of a coarse red-brown Plu- 

 tonic rock, with many small glaciers lying among 

 them. The surface of these rocks was much smooth- 

 ened and polished, as if by the passage over them 

 of much heavy ice in by-gone times. There was 

 not a particle of vegetation to be seen, and the as- 

 pect of the country was bleak, sterile, and gloomy 

 beyond description. 



Christian said the sky in that direction had the 

 peculiar appearance which indicates ice underneath, 

 and altogether our impression was that we were 

 within a very few miles of the East Sea, probably 

 at or about Heinlopen Straits. If the longitude 

 of the coast of these straits is laid down in the 

 charts at all correctly, we undoubtedly were close 

 to them now; but the old charts of Spitzbergen 

 are so extremely defective that no reliance is to be 

 placed upon them in any respect. 



I turned my back upon these unexplored straits 

 with regret, and we now hoisted the sail and stood 

 slowly along the coast of the main fiord to look for 

 deer. In the first valley we came to we espied 

 some small troops of deer feeding within half a mile 



