CREENLAND OR POLAR IG^:. 



503 



the fishing ground ; it is often the means of be- 

 setmentj as it is called, and thence the primary 

 cause of every other calamity. Heavy ice, many 

 feet in thickness, and in detached pieces of from 

 50 to 100 tons weight each, though crowded to- 

 gether in the form of a pack, may be penetrated, in 

 a favourable gale, with tolerable dispatch ; whilst 

 a sheet of bay ice, of a few inches only in thick- 

 ness, with the same advantage of wind, will often 

 arrest the progress of the ship, and render her in 

 a few minutes immovable. If this ice be too 

 strong to be broken by the weight of a boat, re- 

 course must be had to sawing, an operation slow 

 and laborious in the extre rne. 



When the warmth of the season has rotted the 

 bay ice, the passage to the northward can general- 

 ly be accomplished with a very great saving of 

 labour. Therefore it was, the older fishers seU 

 [ dom or never used to attempt it before the 10th 

 of May, and foreigners are in general late. Some- 

 times late arrivals are otherwise beneficial ; since 

 it frequently happens, in close seasons, that ships 

 entering the ice about the middle of May, obtain 

 an advantage over those preceding them, by gain- 

 ing a situation more eligible, on account of its 

 nearness to the land. Their predecessors, mean- 

 while, are drifted off to the westward with the 

 ice. and cannot recover their easting ; for, they 

 are encompassed with a large quantity of ice, and 

 have a greater distance to go than when they first 



