GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
50 
ed by a wall of impenetrable ice, we bad an ex¬ 
tent of about fifteen miles towards the NW. of 
free navigation. Unfortunately the given colour 
of the sea changed as we entered the barrier of 
this lake, and in the interior we found it of a 
transparent blue,—a quality which affords so lit¬ 
tle food for the whale, that we were greatly dis¬ 
couraged in our expectations of success in this ad¬ 
venture. 
During the next day we traced the limits of 
our mediglacial sea, and found it bounded on the 
north-west side by large heavy floes, and appa¬ 
rently interminable sheets of bay ice. 
Two whales were seen in the afternoon, anti 
pursued, though unsuccessfully, by the boats of 
both ships. 
May 1 5th .—The sea, which had begun to 
freeze on the preceding evening, became univer¬ 
sally covered with ice as far as the eye could 
reach; and its tenacity increased so rapidly, 
that, before midnight, both the ships stuck fast. 
A swell unfortunately penetrated through our 
seaward boundary, which, though so slight as 
to be scarcely perceptible to the eye, broke the 
floes around us into hundreds of pieces; and im¬ 
mediately the ice began generally to close, so 
that, on the 17th, the floes that were, tliree days 
before, ten or twelve miles asunder, came almost 
