Greenland :—storms. 
341 
rience) of heavy gales of wind in the month of 
August. These gales, which were probably the 
most violent immediately upon the coast, were, in 
this season, all from the northward ; and were so 
prevalent, as to blow violently during six full 
days out of sixteen. In such gales, it is scarcely 
possible for human power to manage a ship, 
among ice, with any degree of safety, even in day 
light, and smooth water. And much less possible 
is it for the navigator to keep himself safe, when 
overtaken by them during the darkness of night, 
and in a turbulent sea. The situation of greatest 
peril, in the season when these storms occur, must 
be when the ships arc about leaving the ice. If a 
ship be lost in smooth water, in the interior of the 
ice, there is a hope of the crew escaping, by the as¬ 
sistance of some other vessel; but if such a calami¬ 
ty should overtake them, in the tremendous swell 
that generally occurs at the edge of the ice in a 
gale, their situation, if not hopeless, must be peri¬ 
lous in the extreme *. 
* Just as this sheet was about to be put to press, I re¬ 
ceived a letter from the Captain of a whaler, that was later 
on the fishing stations near the West Land than myselfj 
giving an interesting account of the difficulties he encoun¬ 
tered from the ice and weather, in the beginning of Sep¬ 
tember, which fully corroborates the views above taken, of 
