238 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. had hitherto been clear about the ship, although the wind was at N.E., 
August, more 0 ff the f an( j than we b e f ore experienced it. Several 
heavy pieces of floes drove close past us, not less than ten or fifteen feet in 
thickness, but they were fortunately stopped by the point of land without 
coming in upon us. At eleven o’clock, however, a mass of this kind, 
being about half an acre in extent, drove in, and gave the ship a consider- 
able “ nip” between it and the land-ice, and then grazed past her to the 
westward. I now directed the rudder to be unhung, and the ship to be 
swung with her head to the eastward, so that the bow, being the strongest 
part, might receive the first and heaviest pressure. 
Tues. 8. The ice did not disturb us again till five A.M. on the 8th, when another 
floe-piece came in, and gave the ship a heavy rub, and then went past, after 
which it continued slack about us for several hours. Every thing was so 
quiet at nine o’clock, as to induce me to venture up the hill abreast of us, 
in order to have a view of the newly-discovered land to the south-west, 
which, indeed, I had seen indistinctly and much refracted from the Hecla’s 
deck in the morning. The weather being rather unfavourable, I had not so 
clear a view as Lieutenant Beechey, but I distinctly saw high and bold land 
from S. 75° W. to S. 30° W., the part most plainly visible, and appearing 
the nearest, being at a S. 55° W. bearing. The general distance of this 
land, I considered to be somewhat greater than that at which Lieutenant 
Beechey had estimated it, and it is placed on the chart at from sixteen to 
eighteen leagues from the station at which the ships were lying. This land, 
which extends beyond the 117th degree of west longitude, and is the 
most western yet discovered in the Polar Sea, to the northward of the 
American Continent, was honoured with the name of Banks’s Land, out of 
respect to the late venerable and worthy President of the Royal Society, 
whose long life was actively engaged in the encouragement and promotion of 
discovery and general science. 
The loom of land was frequently seen as far as a south-east bearing from 
the present station of the ships, which corresponds with the appearances 
often observed during our stay in Winter Harbour ; as I have scarcely a 
doubt, therefore, that this forms a continuation of Banks’s Land, which is, 
in all probability, another island of the North Georgian group, I have 
marked it on the chart by an unshaded line as far as the above bearing. 
From the top of the hill, not a “ hole” could be seen in the ice in any 
direction ; the wind being extremely variable during the day, kept us in 
