18 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1819. the lat. of 63§°. We found ourselves in the midst of a great number of 
very high icebergs, of which I counted from the crow’s nest, eighty-eight, 
besides many smaller ones. We tacked immediately to the westward, in 
order to take advantage of the only clear weather we had enjoyed for the 
last fourteen days, to examine the state of the ice, and observed at noon, in 
lat. 72° 58' 13", the long., by chronometers, being 58° 42' 11". The 
soundings were two hundred and twenty-eight fathoms, muddy-bottom, 
having deepened from one hundred and six, in sailing eight miles to the 
westward. 
Having now reached the latitude of 73°, without seeing a single opening 
in the ice, and being unwilling to increase our distance from Sir James Lan- 
caster’s Sound, by proceeding much farther to the northward, I determined 
once more to enter the ice in this place, and to try the experiment of 
forcing our way through it, in order to get into the open sea, which the 
experience of the former voyage led me to believe we should find upon the 
western coast of Baffin’s Bay. This determination was strengthened by the 
recollection of the serious obstructions we had met with the preceding 
year, in the neighbourhood of Prince Regent’s Bay, where greater detention, 
as well as danger, had been experienced, than on any other part of that 
coast. Being now, therefore, favoured with clear weather, and a moderate 
breeze from the south-eastward, we ran into the ice, which, for the first 
two miles, consisted of detached pieces, but afterwards of floes of con- 
siderable extent, and six or seven feet in thickness. The wind died away 
towards midnight, and the weather was serene and clear. The altitude of 
the sun on the meridian below the pole, gave the latitude 72° 59' 13", being 
11' 57" to the southward of that deduced from the observations of the 
preceding and following noons, which error may, perhaps, be attributed to the 
elevation of the horizon by terrestrial refraction. The temperature of the air 
at this time was 40° ; of the water, 34°, and the barometer stood at 29.57 
inches. A large bear was seen on one of the floes, and we passed the tracks 
of many others. 
Thur.22. On the 22d. the wind was light from the eastward, and we made very 
little progress. We had occasionally to heave the ships through with 
hawsers, between the heavy masses of ice, which became more and more 
close as we advanced, till, at length, towards the evening, we were fairly 
beset, there being no open water in sight from the mast-head in any quarter 
of the compass. Some hands were kept constantly employed in heaving 
