GREENLAND OR POLAR IC£. 



505 



point many times in succession, would afford a 

 presumptive proof, that he employed some art in 

 casting the die. So it is with the fishery. The 

 most skilful, from adventitious and unavoidable 

 circumstances, may occasionally fail, and the un- 

 skilful may be successful ; but mark the average 

 of a number of years, (that is where the means 

 are equal, ) and a tolerable estimate may be form- 

 ed, of the adventurer's fitness for his undertak- 

 ing. 



The change which takes place in the ice amidst 

 which the whale-fisher pursues his object, is, to- 

 wards the close of the season, indeed astonishing. 

 For, not only does it separate into its original in- 

 dividual portions, — not only does it retreat in a 

 body from the western coast of Spitzbergen, but 

 in general, that whole barrier of ice which err- 

 closes the fishing site in the spring, which costs 

 the fisher immense labour and anxiety to pene- 

 trate, after retarding his advance towards the 

 north, and progress in the fishery, for the space of 

 several weeks, — spontaneously divides in the 

 midst about the month of June, and on the 

 return of the ships is not at all to be seen ! Then 

 is the sea rendered freely navigable from the very 

 haunts of the whales, to the expanse of the North- 

 ern and Atlantic Oceans. 



This quality of the ice, is of the first import- 

 ance to the navigator. It is this knawn property 

 which gives him confidence in his advance, and en- 



