INTRODUCTION. Xlll 



rugged, and soft state of the surface of tlie ice over 

 wliich we travelled ; and secondly, the drifting of the 

 whole body of ice in a southerly direction. On mature 

 reconsideration of all the circumstances attending this 

 enterprise, I am induced to alter the opinion I gave 

 as to its practicability in my journal, p. li'l ; because 

 I believe it to be an object of no very difficult attain- 

 ment if set about in a different manner. My plan is 

 to go out with a single ship to Spitzbergen, just as 

 we did in the Hecla, but not so early in the season ; 

 the object for that year being merely to find secure 

 winter quarters as far north as possible. For this 

 purpose it would only be necessary to reach Hakluyt's 

 Headland by the end of June, which would aiford 

 ample leisure for examining the more northern lands, 

 especially about the Seven Islands, where, in all pro- 

 bability, a secure nook might be found for the ship, 

 and a starting point for the proposed expedition, some 

 forty or fifty miles in advance of the point where the 

 Hecla was before laid up. The winter might be 

 usefully employed in various preparations for the 

 journey, as well as in magnetic, astronomical, and 

 meteorological observations of high interest in that 

 latitude. I propose that the expedition should leave 

 the ship in the course of the month of April, when 

 the ice would present one hard and unbroken surface, 

 over which, as I confidently believe, it would not 

 be difficult to make good thirty miles per day without 

 any exposure to wet, and probably without snow- 

 blindness. At this season, too, the ice would probably 

 be stationary, and thus the two great difficulties which 

 wc formerly had to encounter would be entirely obvi- 



