98 
GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
/ 
ving reached the edge of the large field mentioned 
on the 7th, we landed all the crew upon it, and drag¬ 
ged the ship by a rope two or three miles, until, on 
the springing up of a breeze, we had room to take 
sail. At 7 a. m. we reached a largo opening, 
which communicated, by various narrow and in¬ 
tricate channels, with other openings towards the 
north-west. These we traced to their utmost li¬ 
mit, until the ice became a solid impervious body, 
with scarcely a pool of water to be seen among 
it, from the mast-head. Here, therefore, our ap¬ 
proach towards the land was stopped. 
In the evening, I observed in longitude, by chro¬ 
nometer 17° 39' W.; the latitude was 73° 43'. This 
position, compared with the observations of the 
preceding day, gave me a base line, from the ex¬ 
tremes of which, I obtained intersecting bearings 
of the land, that enabled me to lay down in a 
chart the most prominent parts of the coast. 
Wednesday, June 12 th .—We had the wind 
this day from various quarters, but chiefly from 
the south-eastward. For nearly four days, or 
ninety-six hours, previous to this, the weather 
had been clear, and the sky almost constantly 
cloudless; so that the sun, in making nearly four 
revolutions in the heavens, was never for a mo¬ 
ment obscured. The reflection of the sun’s rays 
from the ice, rendered the light excessively in- 
