SPITZUEllGEN AND GRKEiM.AND. o'o 



The highest colour is delicate blew, of the same colour 

 with the blewest vitriol, somewhat more trausparcnt, yet not 

 so clear as that in our country, which you may see through 

 let it be never so thick ; it is as hard as a stone, and it is not 

 easily split or cleav'd, because it is spungy, like unto pumice 

 stone. Among the ice the ships sail up and down until they 

 come to bigger ice-fields, for the small ones encumber the 

 sea, that the ships sail often against them and perish ; for 

 when the winds arise the waves drive against the ice-fields, 

 as it was against rocks, and beat the ships to pieces. 



When we are passed by these small ice-fields, that swim 

 at a great distance from one another, then we sail in between 

 them and draw a small ice-field behind the stern of our ship, 

 that it may be the sooner stopt and kept from swift sailing 

 •without letting the sails strike, or else it might easily run 

 against an ice-field. Every ship's master is left to his free 

 will whether he will sail into the ice, because in the spring 

 the whales are in great numbers seen there in the JVest-ice, 

 as they call it. 



The masters do not willingly sail in amongst the ice when 

 it is dark or foggy or stormy, which must be expected in the 

 spring, and the small sheets of ice swim up and down in the 

 sea, which the skippers must avoid lest they lose their ships. 



It may seem something strange that they sail so often to 

 the ice and back again, but there is the same reason for it as 

 hunting after deer, if we do not find tvhales in one place, we 

 must seek them in others ; for the fortune in ketching of 

 whales is like the chances of gaming, and there is no great 

 i;nderstanding required to find them : some see and catch 

 more than they desire, and others but at a half mile distance 

 from them see not one, which is very common. 



AV'hen they go in among the ice, the men stand ready with 

 great ice-hooks to keep them off, that the ship may not run 

 against them. 



The farther you sail into and amongst the ice, the greater 



