280 GREENLAND OR POLAR ICE^ 



laid the other, and presently covered many acre's 

 of surface. The ship proving an obstacle to the 

 course of the ice, it squeezed up on both sides,' 

 shaking her in a dreadful manner, and producing 

 a loud grinding, or lengthened acute tremulous 

 noise, accordingly as the degree of pressure was 

 diminished or increased, until it had risen as high 

 as the deck. After about two hours, the velocity 

 was diminished to a state of rest ; and soon after- 

 wards, the two sheets of ice receded from each 

 other, nearly as rapidly as they before advanced. 

 The ship, in this case, did not receive any injury, 

 but had the ice been only half a foot thicker, she 

 would probably have been wrecked. 



In the month of May of the present year, (1813), 

 I witnessed a more tremendous scene. Whilst na- 

 vigating amidst the most ponderous ice which the 

 Greenland seas present, in the prospect of making 

 our escape from a state of besetment ; our progress 

 was unexpectedly arrested by an isthmus of ice, 

 about a mile in breadth, formed by the coali- 

 tion of the point of an immense field on the 

 north, with that of an aggregation of Jioes on 

 the south. To the north field, we moored the 

 ship, in the hope of the ice separating in this 

 place. I th^n quitted the ship, and travelled over 

 the ice to the point of collision, to observe the 

 state of the bar which now prevented our release. 

 I immediately discovered, that the two points had 

 but recently met ; that already a prodigious mass 



