GREENLAND OR POLAR ICE. 31 5 



the ice, to a distance of ten or twelve leagues 

 from the exterior, v/herein we were tempted to 

 stay, from the appearance of a great number of 

 whales. On the 9th of May, the weather calm- 

 ed, the frost was severe, and the ship was soon 

 fixed in young ice. At the same time, the ex- 

 ternal sheets of ice on the north-east wheeled to 

 the south, formed a junction with the ice south- 

 east from us, and completely enclosed us. Until 

 the 16th, we lay immovable ; a break of the bay 

 ice then appeared about half a~mile from us, to 

 attain which, we laboured with energy, and in 

 eight hours had made a passage for the ship. On 

 the 18th, we pursued the same opening to its 

 eastern extremity, and endeavoured, but without 

 success, to force through a narrow neck of ice, 

 into another opening leading further in the same 

 direction. On the 20th, in accomplishing this 

 object, we endured a heavy pressure of the bay 

 ice, which shook the ship in an alarijiing manner. 

 The next day, we made a small advance ; and on 

 the 22d, after a fatiguing effort in passing through 

 the midst of an aggregation of floes, against the 

 wind, we obtained a channel which led us several 

 miles to the south-eastward. On the 23d, we lay 

 at rest together with four other ships. The day 

 following, having sawn a place for the ship in a 

 thin floe, we forced forward between two large 

 masses, where bay ice unconsolidated had been 

 .compressed, until it had become 10 or 12 feet 



X 3 



