8 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1819. in the evening in two hundred fathoms, fine sandy bottom, being close to a 
large iceberg, from which copious streams of water were flowing on the side 
next the sun. 
Thur.24. On the clearing up of a fog, on the morning of the 24th, we saw a long 
chain of icebergs, extending several miles in a N.b.W. and S.b.E. direction ; 
and, as we approached them, we found a quantity of “ floe-ice” intermixed 
with them, beyond which, to the westward, nothing but ice could be seen. 
At noon being in lat. 63° 34' 24", long, 61° 34' 28", we had soundings, with 
one hundred and twenty fathoms of line, on a bottom of fine sand, which 
makes it probable that most of the icebergs were aground in this place. 
In the afternoon, we sailed within the edge of the ice, as much as a light 
westerly wind would admit, in order to approach the western land, as 
directed by my instructions. Some curious effects of atmospheric refraction 
were observed this evening, the low ice being at times considerably raised 
in the horizon, and constantly altering its appearance. An iceberg, at the 
distance of two or three miles from us, assumed an inverted shape, as in the 
following figure : 
Inverted Image. 
Iceberg. 
Frid.25 The weather being nearly calm on the morning of the 25th, all the boats 
were kept a-head, to tow the ships through the ice to the westward. It 
remained tolerably open till four P.M., when a breeze, freshening up from 
the eastward, caused the ice through which we had lately been towing, to 
close together so rapidly, that we had scarcely time to hoist iip the boats 
before the ships were immoveably “ beset.” The clear sea which we had 
left was about four miles to the eastward of us, while to the westward 
nothing but one extensive field of ice could be seen. It is impossible to 
conceive a more helpless situation than that of a ship thus beset, when all 
the power that can be applied will not alter the direction of her head a 
Sat. 26. single degree of the compass. On the 26th, we were in lat. by observation, 
63° 59' 29", and long. 61° 42' 58 7 , having one hundred and twenty-five 
fathoms, on a fine sandy bottom. The deep-sea line indicated a drift to 
the S.b.W. Some of our gentlemen, having walked a mile or two from the 
ships, imagined that they saw the marks of a sledge upon the ice, but, as 
