82 
Greenland voyage. 
sisting of a single mass of the heaviest sheet-ice, 
nearly twenty miles in diameter. By this field, 
the clear sea we now navigated had been pro¬ 
duced, under the influence of south-westerly 
winds, which had drifted away the smaller and 
lighter ice from its eastern edge. In this way, 
wherever the ice has room to move, considerable 
spaces of water, free from any incumbrance, are 
almost invariably produced on the lee-side of the 
more ponderous fields and floes. The effect of 
the larger fields is sometimes such, as to occasion 
open lakes which the eye cannot compass from a 
ship’s mast-head. 
1 he night of the 7th—8tli was stormy, with 
snow or fog; but, at four in the afternoon, the wind 
having subsided, the sky became perfectly clear. 
Land was then discovered, extending from N by 
E (by the compass) to NW.; the nearest part sup¬ 
posed to be at the distance of fifty miles. This 
was the eastern coast of Greenland, being an 
extension, or continuation towards the north, of 
that coast on which the ancient Icelandic colonies 
were planted in the tenth century. I looked on it 
with intense interest, and flattered myself with 
the hope of being able to land upon some of its 
picturesque crags, where European foot had never 
trod, before the season for the fishery should come 
to a close. As no ship had ever before penetra- 
