22 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1819. To avoid the necessity of going round, or where no other channel presented 
itself, we ran through several of these bay-floes, which were from four to six 
inches thick, ploughing up the ice before the ship’s stem, at the rate of five 
miles an hour. If they were not very broad, the Hecla did not lose her 
way in passing through them. Frequently, however, she was stopped in 
the middle, which made it necessary to saw and break the ice a-head, till 
she made another start, and, having run a short distance in clear water, was 
again imbedded in the same manner. We passed one field of ice, about ten 
feet in thickness, and many miles in length, as we could not see over it 
from the mast-head. This was the only “ field,” according to the definition 
applied to that term by the whalers, that I had ever seen in Baffin’s Bay. 
About eleven P.M. the lanes of open water a-head became very contracted, and 
at half-past eleven, in endeavouring to force through a floe, under a heavy press 
of canvass, the Hecla was completely wedged in, having run her OAvn length 
into it, though its thickness was between a foot and eighteen inches. In the 
course of this day’s sailing, the ships received many severe blows from the 
ice, but apparently suffered no damage. The concussions which the chrono- 
meters experienced, were, perhaps, such as few watches of this kind had 
ever before been exposed to ; but we did not subsequently discover that any 
alteration had taken place in their rates, in consequence of them. 
Wed. 28 . The wind continued to blow strong from the south-east with heavy-rain ; 
and at half-past three A.M., after several hours’ sawing, in which the men 
suffered much from wet and fatigue, we succeeded in getting clear ; but after 
running a quarter of a mile, were again beset in the same manner. By the 
time the Griper had joined us, we had once more unavoidably hampered the 
Hecla among the ice, and did not succeed in extricating her till four P.M., 
after which we found so much clear water as we proceeded, that, with the 
exception of a few streams and “ patches,” which we met with on the 
following day, and through which the ships sailed without much difficulty, 
we had now passed every impediment which obstructed our passage to 
Sir James Lancaster’s Sound. The breadth of this barrier of ice, which 
occupies the middle of Baffin’s Bay, and which had never before been crossed 
in this latitude at the same season, was eighty miles, in a N. 63° W. direc- 
tion. I have been thus particular and minute, perhaps tediously so, 
in detailing our endeavours to obtain a passage through the ice to the 
western coast of Baffin’s Bay, in order to shew how necessary it is to per- 
severe and not to be discouraged by frequent failures, nor deterred from 
