242 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
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1820 . Under these circumstances, I began to consider whether it would not be 
advisable, whenever the ice would allow us to move, to sacrifice a few miles 
of the westing we had already made, and to run along the margin of the 
floes, in order to endeavour to find an opening leading to the southward, by 
taking advantage of which we might be enabled to prosecute the voyage to 
the westward in a lower latitude. I was the more inclined to make this 
attempt, from its having long become evident to us, that the navigation of this 
part of the Polar Sea is only to be performed by watching the occasional 
openings between the ice and the shore ; and that, therefore, a continuity of 
land is essential, if not absolutely necessary, for this purpose. Such a con- 
tinuity of land, which was here about to fail us, must necessarily be furnished 
by the northern coast of America, in whatsoever latitude it may be found ; 
and, as a large portion of our short season had already been occupied in 
fruitless attempts to penetrate further to the westward in our present parallel, 
under circumstances of more than ordinary risk to the ships, I determined, 
whenever the ice should open sufficiently, to put into execution the plan I had 
proposed. 
The westerly wind cleared us by slow degrees of the loose masses of ice 
about the ship, and in the afternoon the main body went off about three 
hundred yards, drifting also a little to the eastward. It may always be 
expected, in icy seas, that a breeze of wind, however light, will set the ice 
in motion, if there be any room for it to move ; in such cases, the smaller 
pieces of course begin to drift the first, and the heavier ones soon follow, 
though at a slower rate : among loose ice, therefore, almost every separate 
piece is seen to move with a different velocity, proportioned to its depth 
under water. 
Having gone on shore in the evening to make some observations for the 
variation, I afterwards ascended the hill, in order to take a view of the state 
of the ice in the offing. The breeze had now begun to open several “ holes,” 
particularly in the west and south-east quarters ; it was most loose in the 
latter direction, except close along the land to the eastward, where a ship 
might possibly have been got, had this been our immediate object. The ice, 
however, looked just as promising to the westward as in any other quarter, 
and I found, before I returned on board, that it continued to drift to the 
eastward, and to leave more and more space of clear water in the required 
direction. I, therefore, communicated to Lieutenant Liddon my intention of 
pushing on to the westward the instant the sea became clear enough for the 
