OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
87 
were at this time drifting to leeward through the water at the rate of 1819. 
about a mile and a quarter an hour; in spite of which they went so fast 
to the westward by the land, that Lieutenant Beechey and myself esti- 
mated the current to be running at least two miles per hour in that di- 
rection. I must here remark that, besides the current to which I have 
now alluded, and by which the floes and other heavi/ masses of ice ap- 
peared to be affected, there was, as usual in this navigation, a superficial 
current also, setting the smaller pieces past the others at a much quicker 
rate. In the course of this narrative, I shall have frequent occasion to remark, 
how, immediately after the springing up of a breeze, such a current ge- 
nerally commences running upon the surface, in the Polar seas. 
Of the causes which now produced this strong westerly current, at a 
time when the contrary might rather have been anticipated, it is of course not 
easy, with our present limited experience of this part of the Polar Sea, 
to offer any very probable conjecture ; but the impression upon our minds at 
the time was, that it was perhaps caused by the re-action of the water, 
which had been forced to the eastward in the early part of the late gales, 
against the ice with which the sea was almost entirely covered in that 
direction. Be this as it may, however, we did not fail to draw from it 
one conclusion, which was favourable to the object we had in view; 
namely, that the drift of so large a body of ice for days together in a 
westerly direction, indicated a considerable space of open sea somewhere 
in that quarter. I was, on every account, therefore, desirous to take ad- 
vantage of a current which was setting us so fast in the desired direction, 
and, with that view, had come to the determination to anchor the ships 
to an immense field of ice, over which we could not see from the mast- 
head, and of which the thickness was greater than any I had ever be- 
fore seen ; by which means we were in hopes of making some progress, 
notwithstanding the unfavourable appearances before us. Ere this could 
be effected, however, it was perceived that the main body of the ice 
was not only setting to the westward, but was also rapidly approaching 
the shore ; so that it was impossible to adopt the proposed measure, with- 
out incurring the serious risk of being enclosed between them. Finding that 
no further progress could possibly be made at present, and the wind again 
-freshening up from the westward, with heavy squalls of snow, I was once 
more under the necessity of returning to the eastward till some land-ice could 
be met with, to which the ships might be secured for the night. They were 
