34 2 Captain Scoresby’s Journal of a Voyage to the 
“ The ship being now fairly at sea,, the ship’s company were di- 
vided into three f watches/ containing an equal proportion of har- 
pooners, boat-steerers, &c. This arrangement, which the large 
complement of a Greenland ship’s crew renders easily practicable, 
gives each man, excepting on extraordinary occasions, 16* hours rest 
out of 24. This is a great relief to them in cold weather, and serves 
to compensate them for the extraordinary exertions to which they 
are sometimes called. At the same time, we appointed a crew of 
six or seven men for each of our seven whale-boats, for the purpose 
of getting them fully prepared and fitted for the fishery, and for 
keeping them in order when on service.” P. 13 . 
On the 10th, they passed to the westward of the Faroe Islands, 
at no great distance : and, on day-break of the 14th ,fell in with 
ice , about 150 miles to the eastward of Iceland, in so low a lati- 
tude as G4* 3 30' N., — a position in which Captain Scoresby had 
never before seen ice. 
" It must,” he remarks, “ have been brought hither by a conti- 
nuance of strong gales from the NW. Its effect on the climate of 
Iceland, the whole of which island the ice appeared at this time to 
envelope, must have proved both disagreeable and baneful to the 
inhabitants. In summer, the ice generally retires far from the coast ; 
blit during the preceding 1 8 months, it is probable that the northern 
parts of the island were never free from its chilling influence. To- 
wards the end of August 1821, a season when the ice should have 
retired to its greatest distance from the shore, I found the promon- 
tory of Langaness encompassed by large streams of heavy drift-ice, 
which it appears never left the coast the whole of the summer. The 
effect of this on the temperature was most striking. In descending 
from Lat. 71° to 6?*, the highest observation of the thermometer was 
88*, and when close in-shore, near Langaness, it was 35 ° at mid- 
day, and 32 ° early in the morning. It might be reasonably expect- 
ed, that such a degree of cold in the height of summer would be 
destructive to vegetation, and, consequently, most dangerous to the 
cattle, whose supply of herbage in this quarter is at all times scanty ; 
yet, in the interior, we are informed, by the Danish journals of the 
period, that the summer of 1821 was uncommonly warm.” P. 14, 1 5. 
On April 15. they forced their way through the ice, and got 
clear of it in the evening. The weather all day was delightful. 
The Latitude at noon was 64° 41'. An hour or two before mid- 
night, a splendid aurora borealis made its appearance, and the 
following excellent description is given of it. 
“ It commenced in the north, and extended itself in an arch across 
the zenith, towards the south. A sort of crown was then formed in 
the zenith, which was most brilliantly illuminated, and gave out in- 
numerable coruscations of great beauty, and with astonishing velo- 
city. The light appeared to be equal to that of the full moon; and 
various colours, particularly blue, green and pink, were stated by 
my officers to have been clearly observed. Its extreme distinctness. 
