152 Account of the Expedition to Baffin^ s Bap. 
and longitude 53° 30' ; and, on the 17th, a landing was effected 
on Waygat or Hare Island, where they continued two days 
making observations in a fixed observatory. After leaving Way- 
gat Island on the 20th, Captain Ross began to experience the diffi- 
culties and perils of navigating an icy sea. Followed by thirty-nine 
sail of Greenland whalers, the Isabella and the Alexander were 
conducted with great skill and perseverance through narrow and 
intricate channels, sometimes closed in by floes of ice, some- 
times exposed to the impulse of these driving masses, and at 
other times lifted out of the water by their mutual approach. 
By warping, towing, and tracking the vessels, which was some- 
times performed by the whole ship’s company marching to mu- 
sic, they reached the latitude of 75° 50' where new perils await- 
ed them. The wind having increased to a gale on the 7th of 
. August, the floes of ice closed in upon them on all sides. The 
pressure upon the vessels continuing to increase, it became a 
trial of strength between the wood and the ice. Every support 
threatened to give way. The beams in the hold began to bend, 
and the iron tanks settled together. At this critical moment, 
the Isabella rose several feet, and the ice, which was more than 
six feet thick, broke against her sides, curling back upon itself. 
The great stress now fell upon her bow, and after being a second 
time difted up, she was carried with great violence against the 
Alexander. The ice anchors and cables broke one after ano- 
ther ; and the sterns of the two ships came so violently into con- 
tact, as to crush to pieces a boat that could not be removed in 
time. By this tremendous collision, the anchors were broken, 
and the result might have proved fatal to both vessels, had not 
the ice exhausted its fury, and by the separation of the two con- 
tending fields permitted the Isabella to pass .th« Alexander with 
comparatively little damage. 
According to Sir Charles Giesecke, the Island of Tessiursak, 
in latitude 74° 15', and about eighty miles north of Uppernavic, 
was the most northern inhabited part of Greenland. The line 
of the coast, he was no longer able to trace beyond 72° 30'; but 
he had carefully examined the numerous islands by which it is 
fringed, and which are so crowded, that a ship at sea cannot 
fail to consider them as a part of the continent. Sir Charles 
fiac! penetrated as far as Nullok, Saitok, and Ujordlersoak, to 
