do 
FIRST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS, 
attempt to get much further to the north as hopeless, the Danes 
not having been able to communicate by sea for two seasons past 
with their northern settlements As a proof of the severity of 
the preceding winter, they had been obliged to kill their dogs 
or food, owing to the impossibility of procuring seals during 
the winter. 
The information communicated by the Danish governor, ex¬ 
cited no little surprise in the mind of Capt. Ross, after the con¬ 
fidence with which the diminished rigor of the climate had been 
described at home, before the commencement of his voyage, and 
after the anticipations of success which had been so warmly 
entertained, by those who had so eagerly entered into the plan 
for promoting it. The report of the Danish resident was cer¬ 
tainly in decided opposition, to those of the persons who had 
described the breaking up and dispersion of the polar ice, and 
who appear in this instance to have been guided rather by 
their imagination, than by a real knowledge of the circumstances 
attending this sea. 
From Disco, Capt, Ross steered his course to the northward, 
and on the 16th, boarded several Greenlandmen, and learned 
that none of their ships had been able to penetrate farther north 
than 70° 30', and that he would fall in with ice in two hours, 
through which he might sail as for as Hare Island, where it 
became a solid body. 
On the following day the ships proceeded, steering along the 
edge of the main ice, and a firm field stretching from north to 
south; they sailed on between large floes and among loose ice, 
the former becoming more numerous as they advanced, and the 
latter more closely packed, till at length they had only a narrow 
and crooked channel for their passage. A ridge of icebergs 
was now seen of every variety and shape that can be imagined; 
many of them forming objects no less singular than picturesque, 
and presenting an infinite diversity in their grouping, and in the 
splendour and brilliancy of their colouring. 
On the 17th, the ships entered Waygatt Straits, and made 
fast to an iceberg about a mile from the N. E. side of the island. 
Here Capt. Ross went on shore and ascended a mountain, in order 
