THE MIDDLE ICE. 
53 
tritus of the bergs. We sailed along this field about 
ten miles. 
"At 9 P.M. the fogs settled around us, and we en- 
tered again upon an area full of floating masses of 
berg. As it was impossible to avoid them, they gave 
us some heavy thumps. Taking our main-mast for a 
guide, we estimated the height of the larger bergs at 
about two hundred feet. 
"At 11 we cleared the floes, and, favored with a free 
wind, found ourselves nearly opposite Omenak's Fiord, 
a noted seat of iceberg growth and distribution." 
There is a something in the atmosphere of these 
latitudes that makes the estimate of distance falla- 
cious. How far we were from land I could not tell ; 
but we saw distinctly the configuration of the hills 
and the deep recesses of the fiord. The sun, although 
nearing midnight, was five degrees above the horizon, 
and threw its rich coloring over the snow. Many 
large bergs were moving in procession from the fiord, 
those in the foreground in full sunshine, those in the 
distance obscured by the shadow of their parent hills. 
Omenak's Fiord, known as Jacob's Bight, is one 
of the largest of those strange clefts, which, penetra- 
ting the mountain range at right angles to its long 
axis, form so majestic a feature of Greenland scenery. 
Its inland termination has never been reached ; and 
it is supposed by Scoresby to be continuous with the 
large sounds, which on a corresponding parallel (70° 
40') enter from the eastern coast.^ 
This idea of an inosculation, or even more direct 
connection between the waters of Baffin's Bay and the 
* Although Graah expresses a doubt whether this sound, which, it seems, was 
discovered by Boon as far back as 1761, is any thing more than a large bay, I 
incline strongly to the view, just expressed, of that excellent observer, Scoresby. 
