348 Captain Scoresby’s Journal of a Voyage to the 
Snow began to descend, and the mercury in the barometer sunk 
to 29° 40', thus announcing a gale, which speedily followed. 
Next morning the wind moderated, and a heavy fall of snow 
commenced. This circumstance, with a low state of the baro- 
meter and a heavy sea, indicated a renewal of the gale from 
another quarter. The wind chopped round to the northward, 
and it presently blew very hard. This sudden change of the 
wind occasioned a great decrease of temperature ; for in the 
space of sixteen hours, the thermometer sunk from 32° to 0° — 2°, 
being a fall of 34°, the most remarkable range of temperature 
ever experienced by Captain Scoresby in the Greenland seas. 
On the 30th April, when the sun broke through the clouds, a 
change of temperature was produced from 3° or 4° below zero, 
to -j- 14° ; and further, the side of the ship on which the sun 
shone was heated to 90° or 100°, and the pitch about the bends 
became fluid. Thus, while on one side there was uncommon 
warmth, on the opposite was great cold. 
On the 1st May, at 5 a. m., Captain Scoresby calculated that 
he had advanced to 80° 34', a distance of only 566 miles from 
the Pole ; but the increasing accumulation of ice to the north- 
ward, and the want of whales, did not encourage further sailing 
in that direction. They were now within a short distance of the 
extreme accessible point of the Greenland ice towards the north ; 
<e and the Baffin,” says Captain Scoresby, “was, without question, 
in the highest latitude of any ship at that moment on the sea ; and 
there was no doubt on my mind, when I stood on the taffrail, as 
the ship was turned before the wind, that I was then nearer to 
the Pole than any individual on the face of the earth.” They 
continued cruising amongst the ice under various latitudes in 
search of whales ; and the first was captured on the 6th of May, 
in Latitude 79° 31' N. On the 9th of May the cold was intense, 
being — 8°, the greatest degree of cold experienced by Captain 
Scoresby during twenty voyages to Greenland. 
“ Though we had smooth water, and kept the compariion-door 
^constantly closed, the cabin became more uncomfortable than the 
deck. Water spilt on the table, within three feet of a hot air-stove, 
became ice ; washed linen became hard anil sonorous ; and mitts 
that had been hung to dry exactly in the front of the fire (the grate 
being full of blazing coals), and only thirty inches distant, were par- 
tially frozen ; and even good ale, placed in a mug at the foot of the 
stove, began do congeal ! A damp hand applied to any metallic sub- 
