310 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 
by which we could safely proceed, and therefore 
preferred remaining where we were, to the risk of 
driving back to the southward on one of the smaller 
masses. 
“ Again, after hauling the boats to the edge of the 
floe we found such a quantity of loose rugged ice to the 
northward of us,, that there was no possibility, for the 
present, of getting across or through it. Soon after¬ 
wards the whole of it became in motion, and driving 
down upon the floe, obliged us to retreat from the 
margin, and wait for some favourable change. We 
here tried for soundings, but found no bottom with 
two hundred fathoms of line. The weather was 
beautifully clear, and the wind moderate from the 
S.W. From this situation we saw the easternmost 
of the Seven Islands, bearing S.b.W.; but Little 
Table Island, though more to the northward, yet 
being less high, was not in sight. Observing a 
small opening at 10.30 p.m., we launched the boats, 
and hauled them across several pieces of ice, some 
of them being very light and much decayed. Our 
latitude, by the sun's meridian altitude at midnight 
was 81° 23'; so that we had made only eight miles 
of northing since our last observation at noon on the 
25 th. 
