106 
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
for which the Gravesend boats are so justly cele- 
brated, be half so ingeniously displayed, as in keep- 
ing clear of the pieces of ice, which now frequently 
threatened by their overwhelming power to impede 
the ship’s progress. At length we came into more 
open water, kept our course, and hoped soon to 
gain our westward destination. We saw with regret 
that our companion, the Trafalgar, was unable to 
follow our track ; that the ice was in rapid motion ; 
and that in all probability, if that ship was not 
already beset, she soon would be ; but a fog coming 
on suddenly shut her from our sight. In the course 
of this day, the ice assumed an entirely new charac- 
ter, consisting principally of pieces about three feet 
above the surface of the water, without hummocks, 
quite level, and of all dimensions from a few yards 
in surface to an extent of many square miles. 
We kept our course all night, and in the 
June 23. came into a basin perfectly free 
from floating ice, but surrounded by fields infinitely 
larger than any we had before seen. It is a re- 
markable circumstance, that fields of ice are always 
found with spaces of water on their boundary; 
whether, this fact has given rise to the hypothesis 
of a polar basin, I will not presume to say ; neither 
will I offer an opinion on the probability of such a 
space being formed round the north pole, since so 
many abler men are undecided upon this interest- 
ing question. The inlet into this basin, was scarcely 
a point of the compass in width, resembling the spout 
of a large jug ; we sailed round its impenetrable 
