PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
537 
Aiiff. 
1827. 
day before. We ran along its edge, and at noon observed the latitude CHAP, 
in 70“ 06'. N. 
Occasional thick weather and snow showers obliged us to keep 
at a greater distance from the pack, and we lost sight of it for several 
hours ; but finding by the increase of the temperature of the water that 
our course led us too much from it, at nine o’clock I steered N. N. E. 
true, and at midnight was again close upon it. The ice was compact 
as before, except near the edge, and extended from W. S. W. to N. N. E. 
mag. trending N. 56° E. true. We now followed its course closely to the 
eastward, and found it gradually turning to the southward. At three 
o’clock the wind veered to south-west with snow showers and thick 
weather; and as this brought us upon a lee shore, I immediately hauled 
off the ice, and carried a press of sail to endeavour to weather Icy Cape. 
The edge of the packed ice at this time was in latitude 70° 47' N. 
trending south-eastward, and gradually approaching the land to the 
eastward of Icy Cape. By the information of Lieutenant Belcher, who 
was off the Cape at this time, though not within sight of the ship, it 
closed the land about twenty-seven miles east of Icy Cape. The pass- 
age that was left between it and the land was extremely narrow ; and 
judging from the effect of the westerly winds off Kefuge Inlet the pre- 
ceding year, it must soon have been closed up, as those winds blew with 
great strength about the time we hauled off. 
From this it appears that the line of packed ice, in the meridian 
of Icy Cape, was twenty -four miles to the southward of its position the 
preceding year, and that it was on the whole much nearer the continent 
of America. With the ice thus pressing upon the American coast, and 
with the prevalence of westerly winds by which this season was distin- 
guished, there would have been very little prospect that a vessel bent 
upon effecting the passage could have succeeded even in reaching Point 
Barrow. 
The wind continuing to blow from the S. W., with thick weather 
and showers of snow, we endeavoured to get an offing, and at ten o’clock 
tacked a mile off the land near Icy Cape. In the afternoon we stood 
again to the southward, and the next day fetched into the bay near 
Cape Beaufort, and at night hove to off Cape Lisburn with thick and cold 
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