whereas, with our boats, which are more light and crank, and therefore very easily heeled over, I have more than once seen a bear on the point of taking possession of them. Great caution should therefore be used under such circumstances in attacking these ferocious creatures. We have always found a boarding-pike the most useful weapon for this purpose. The lance used by the whalers will not easily penetrate the skin, and a musket-ball, except when very close, is scarcely more efficacious.

On the 17th, the margin of the ice appearing more open than we had yet seen it, and there being some appearance of a "water-sky" to the northwest, I was induced to run the ships into the ice, though the weather was too thick to allow us to see more than a mile or two in that direction. We were, at noon, in latitude 72° 00' 21", longitude 59° 43' 04", the depth of water being one hundred and ninety fathoms, on a muddy bottom. The wind shortly after died away, as usual, and, after making a number tacks, in order to gain all we could to the westward, we found ourselves so closely, hemmed in by the ice on every side, that there was no longer room to work the ships, and we therefore made them fast to a floe till the weather should clear up. The afternoon was employed in taking on board a supply of water from the floe. It may be proper at once to remark that, from this time till the end of the voyage, snow-water was exclusively made use of on board the ships for every purpose. During the summer months, it is found in abundance in the pools upon the floes and icebergs; and in the winter, snow was dissolved in the coppers for our daily consumption. The fog cleared away in the evening, when we perceived that no farther progress could be made through the ice, into which we sailed to the westward about twelve miles. We were therefore once more under the necessity of returning to the eastward, lest a change of wind should beset the ships in their present situation.

A thick fog came on again at night, and prevailed till near noon on the 18th, when we came to a close but narrow stream of ice, lying exactly across our course, and at right angles to the main body of the ice. As this stream extended to the eastward as far as we could see from the "crow's nest," an endeavour was made to push the ships with all sail through the narrowest part. The facility with which this operation, technically called "boring," is performed, depends chiefly on having a fresh and free wind, with which we were not favoured on this occasion; so that, when we had forced the ships about one hundred yards into the ice, their way was completely stopped. The stream consisted of such small pieces of ice, that, when an attempt was made to warp the ships ahead by fastening lines to some of the heaviest masses near them, the ice itself came home, without the ships being moved forward.—Every effort to extricate them from this helpless situation proved fruitless for more than two hours, when the Hecla was at length backed out, and succeeded in pushing through another part of the stream in which a small opening appeared just at that moment. All our boats were immediately despatched to the assistance of the Griper, which still remained beset, and which no effort could move in any direction We at length resorted to the expedient of sending a whale-line to her from the Hecla, and then, making all sail upon the latter ship, we succeeded in towing her out, head to wind, till she was enabled to proceed in clear water. The crossing of this stream of ice, of which, the breadth scarcely exceeded three hundred yards, occupied us constantly for more than five hours, and may serve as an example of the detention to which ships are liable in this kind of navigation.

Early on the morning of the 21st the fog cleared away, and discovered to us the land called by Davis, Hope Sanderson and the Woman's Islands, being the first land we had seen in sailing northward into Baffin's Bay, from the lat. of 63¾°. We found ourselves in the midst of a great number of very high icebergs, of which I counted, from the crow's-nest, eighty-eight, besides many smaller ones.

Having now reached the latitude of 73° without seeing a single opening in the ice, and being unwilling to increase our distance from Sir James Lancaster's Sound by proceeding much farther to the northward, I determined once more to enter the ice in this place, and to try the experiment of forcing our way through it, in order to get into the open sea. Being therefore favoured with clear weather, and a moderate breeze from the southeastward, we ran into the ice, which for the first two miles consisted of detached pieces, but afterward of floes of considerable extent, and six or seven feet in thickness. The wind died away towards midnight, and the weather was serene and clear.

At six A.M. on the 23d, a thick fog came on, which rendered it impossible to see our way any farther. We therefore warped to an iceberg, to which the ships were made fast at noon, to wait the clearing up of the fog, being in lat. 73° 04' 10", long. 60° 11' 30". At eight P.M. the weather cleared up, and a few small pools of open water were seen here and there, but the ice was generally as close as before, and the wind being to the westward of north, it was not deemed advisable to move.

The weather, being clear in the morning of the 25th, and a few narrow lanes of water appearing to the westward, the Griper was made fast astern of the Hecla; and her crew being sent to assist in manning our capstan, we proceeded to warp the ships through the ice. This method, which is often adopted by our whalers, has the obvious advantage of applying the whole united force in separating the masses of ice which lie in the way of the first ship, allowing the second, or even third, to follow close astern, with very little obstruction. In this manner we had advanced about four miles to the westward by eight P.M., after eleven hours of very laborious exertion; and having then come to the end of the clear water, and the weather being again foggy, the ships were secured in a deep "bight," or bay in a floe, called by the sailors a "natural dock."

Early on the morning of the 26th there was clear water as far as we could see to the westward, which, on account of the fog, did not exceed the distance of three hundred yards. We made sail, however, and having groped our way for about half a mile, found the ice once more close in every direction except that in which we had been sailing, obliging us to make the ships fast to a floe. At half past three P.M. the weather cleared up, and a few narrow lanes of water being seen to the westward, every exertion was immediately made to get into them. On beginning to heave, however, we found that the "hole" of water in which the Hecla lay was now so completely enclosed by ice that no passage out of it could be found. We tried every corner, but to no purpose; all the power we could apply being insufficient to move the heavy masses of ice which had fixed themselves firmly between us and the lanes of water without. In the mean time, Lieutenant Liddon had succeeded in advancing about three hundred yards, and had placed the Griper's bow between two heavy floes, which it was necessary to separate before any farther progress could be made. Both ships continued to heave at their hawsers occasionally, as the ice appeared to slacken a little, by which means they were now and then drawn ahead a few inches at a time, but did not advance more than half a dozen yards in the course of the night. By our nearing several bergs to the northward, the ice appeared to be drifting in that direction, the wind being moderate from the southward.

About three A.M., Tuesday, 27th, by a sudden motion of the ice, we succeeded in getting the Hecla out of her confined situation, and ran her up astern of the Griper. The clear water had made so much to the westward, that a narrow neck of ice was all that was now interposed between the ships and a large