348 Captain Scoresby’s Journal of a Voyage to the 
posed to renew their search for whales. In this latitude they 
again entered the ice, pursuing a NW. and N. course ; and on 
the 24th saw several whales, but captured none. On the 25th 
the ship encountered a heavy gale, of which an interesting ac- 
count is given. For several days subsequently, the weather was 
generally foggy, with southerly and easterly winds. The tem- 
perature of the air being near to the freezing point, the fog was 
deposited on the rigging in a thin coating of transparent ice, so 
that the ropes, yards, $*c. appeared as if made of ice. On the 
30th, the ship was nearly beset ; but next day a change of wind 
broke up the ice again. On the 1st June the ice was in such a 
state as to allow them to advance nearer to the land, and one 
whale was killed. On the 3d June many whales were seen, and 
one captured. On the 4th June they pushed still further to- 
wards the west, but were again confined in the ice until the 7th. 
During their besetment they saw many narwals, of which ani- 
mal a curious account is given. An observation for the Lat. 
in June 5. gave 74° 18'. On the 6th, in the morning, all the 
rigging of the ship was thinly covered with a double fringe of 
snowy crystals, consisting of the particles of fog that had been 
deposited during the night on the opposite sides of the ropes, as 
they were successively presented to the wind, on the ship being 
repeatedly tacked. This appearance, with others of the same 
character, leads our author into a discussion in regard to the for- 
mation of snow-crystals ; all of which, we may remark, are regular 
six-sided prisms, or modifications of that figure ; and, therefore, 
belong to the rhomboidal series of crystallization. On the 7th of 
J une, such finely marked ice-blinks appeared in the atmosphere, 
in connection with the horizon, as to present a perfect map 
of all the ice and openings of water for twenty or thirty miles 
around, 
“ The reflection was so strong and definite, that I could readily 
determine the figure and probable extent of all the fields and floes 
within this limit, and could distinguish packed or open ice, by its 
duller and less yellow image ; while every vein and lake of water, 
producing its marked reflection by a deep blue, or bluish-black 
patch, amid the ice-blinks, enabled me to ascertain where the most 
water lay, and the nature of the obstacles that intervened. By this 
means only, I discovered a large opening immediately to the north- 
westward of the lake we had so long navigated, with a considerable 
expanse in the same direction, at a greater distance, bounded by 
sheets of ice that appeared to be of prodigious magnitude. This in- 
