306 
A VOYAGE TO SEITZBERGEN. 
newly formed, or at all events sufficiently permanent 
and with no greater difficulties of surface to contend 
with than occasional hummocks of drifted snow, 
with perhaps some pseudo icebergs. Dr. Hayes, the 
American traveller, with his fellow countryman Kane, 
have deserved well of the enterprising Americans under 
whose auspices they made such valuable explorations, 
already recorded in the volumes of Arctic voyages 
which bear their respective names, and from which 
it wdll be seen, that when in Baffin's Bay they found 
the ice broken in the winter, no doubt assisted by 
the strong current which there obtains—a current, 
be it noted, which runs seven knots in the hour. 
Such a current, if it exists at all to the north of the 
Spitsbergen Islands, was not noticed by us. Should 
the ice again, under the influence of some gale, get 
broken up, it is reasonable to suppose that the injury 
will soon repair itself in a temperature so low. Off 
Jan Majen’s Island the ice freezes together in the 
early spring, as the sealers, who go there at that early 
season of the year, are often beset in the ice, and the 
whole field is frozen together in a very short space of 
time, cutting off any chance of escape until the solid 
mass floating down towards the northern shores of 
Iceland is sighted some six weeks later. 
The following extracts from Parry's journal (a scarce 
