OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
17 
despatched to the assistance of the Griper, which still remained beset, and 1819. 
which no effort could move in any direction. We at length resorted to 
the expedient of sending a whale-line to her from the Hecla, and then 
making all sail upon the latter ship, we succeeded in towing her out, head 
to wind, till she was enabled to proceed in clear water. The crossing of 
this stream of ice, of which the breadth scarcely exceeded three hundred 
yards, occupied us constantly for more than five hours and may se ve as an 
example of the detention to which ships are liable in this kind of navigation. 
In the course of the afternoon, one of the Hecla’s boats was upset by the 
ice, and Mr. Palmer, with all her crew, thrown out of her ; but, by getting 
upon the ice, they fortunately escaped with no other injury than a thorough 
wetting. 
The wind having veered to the northward, we tacked off and on, beating Mon. 19. 
along the edge of the ice, in which no opening appeared, to encourage a 
hope of getting through it to the westward. At noon we had reached the 
lat. of 72° 31' 58", and long. 59° 03' 54", our soundings being one hundred 
and forty-two fathoms, on a muddy bottom. In the afternoon, a ship 
running to the southward, and which we supposed to be one of the home- 
ward-bound whalers, passed us at the distance of seven miles. 
At noon, on the 20th, we Avere in lat., by account, 72° 57' 31 ", long. 58° 40' 57", Tues. 20. 
and the depth of water was one hundred and twenty fathoms, the bottom 
consisting of mud, with small black stones. At this time, the weather being 
perfectly calm, with a thick fog, we perceived that a current, setting to the 
S.S.W.,was drifting the ship towards a large iceberg in that direction ; and a 
quantity of floe-ice, AA'hich was driving the same way, threatened to enclose 
us between it and the berg. All the boats were instantly lowered, and sent 
a-head to tow, by which means we cleared the berg, just one minute before 
the floe-ice came forcibly in contact with it, surrounding it on every side. 
This iceberg was about one hundred and forty feet high in one part, and from 
the soundings we obtained near it, must have been aground in one hundred 
and twenty fathoms, so that its whole height was about eight hundred and 
sixty feet. The weather continued so foggy during the rest of the day, that 
it required our utmost attention to keep clear of the numerous ice-bergs which 
lay in our way. 
Early on the morning of the 21st, the fog cleared away, and discovered to Wed. 21 
us the land called by Davis Hope Sanderson, and the Woman’s Islands, 
being the first land we had seen in sailing northwards into Baffin’s Bay, from 
D 
