252 now TO thymen's straits. 



upper third was composed of a series of briglit 

 russet-coloured columns of rock, arranged per- 

 pendicularly, and looking exactly like a number 

 of half-decayed trunks of enormous trees hound 

 together in a sort of Titanic faggot. 



2ltJi. — After myself and my boat's crew had 

 had five hours' sleep, we started again on 

 another trip, my intention being to penetrate 

 well into Walter Thymen's Straits, a narrow 

 passage of twenty or five-and-twenty miles 

 long, and five or six in breadth, which di- 

 vides East Spitzbergen into two nearly equal 

 halves. 



When there is ice in this strait it is a great 

 tlioronghfare for seals and sea-horses passing 

 from the East Sea into Stour Eiord, and we 

 were in hopes that ice would by this time have 

 been driven into it by the current from the 

 east. It is considered a dangerous place for 

 vessels, on account of the violent current 

 running through it, so I preferred going in 

 the boat to risking my yacht itself in the 

 straits. 



It seemed by the chart as if we had not more 

 than ten or twelve miles to go, as in the chart 

 there is laid down at the north-west corner of 

 the straits what appears to be a bank with 



