282 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
Our own ran to Bear Island was very rapid. On 
getting outside the islands, a fair fresh wind sprung 
up, and we went spinning along for two nights and two 
days as merrily as possible, under a double-reefed 
mainsail and staysail, on a due north course. On the 
third day we began to see some land birds, and a few 
hours afterwards, the loom of the island itself; but 
it had already begun to get fearfully cold, and our 
thermometer—which I consulted every two hours— 
plainly indicated that we were approaching ice. My 
only hope was—that at all events, the southern ex¬ 
tremity of the island might be disengaged; for I was 
very anxious to land, in order to examine some coal¬ 
beds which are said to exist in the upper strata of the 
sandstone formation. This expectation was doomed to 
complete disappointment. Before we had got within 
six miles of the shore, it became evident that the report 
of the Hammerfest Sea-horseman was too true. 
Between us and the land there extended an im¬ 
penetrable barrier of packed ice, running due east and 
west—as far as the eye could reach. 
What was now to be done? If a continuous field 
of ice lay 150 miles off the southern coast of Spitz- 
