ed from west to east,
actually joined to these islands; and, from them, to what is called the
north-east land. In returning to their ships, about seven in the
morning, round which the ice had, in their absence, so completely got,
that with their ice-anchors out they had moored alongside a field of
it, they were frequently obliged to haul the boats, over ice which had
closed since they went, to other openings.

At nine o'clock, in the morning, the 31st, having a light breeze to the
eastward, they cast off, and endeavoured to force through the ice; but,
at noon, finding it too close to proceed, again moored to a field. In
the afternoon they filled their casks with fresh water from the ice,
which they found very pure and soft. The field of ice, to which both
vessels were now moored, was found to be eight yards ten inches thick at
one end, and seven yards eleven inches at the other. The ice closed
fast, and was all round the ships; no opening to be any where seen,
except a hole of about a mile and a half, where the ships lay fast to
the ice, with ice-anchors. It being calm the greater part of the day,
and the weather very fine, the ships companies amused themselves, almost
the whole time, in playing on the ice. The pilots, however, finding
themselves much farther than they had ever before penetrated, and
reflecting on the advanced state of the season, seemed alarmed with
apprehensions of being beset.

On the 1st of August, the ice pressed in so fast, that there was now not
the smallest opening. The two ships were within less than two lengths of
each other, neither of them having room to turn. The ice, which had been
all flat the day before, and almost level with the water's edge, was now
in many places forced higher than the main-yard by the pieces squeezing
together. Their latitude this day at noon, by the double altitude, was
eighty degrees thirty-seven minutes.

On the 2d, it was thick, foggy, wet weather, the wind blowing fresh to
the westward; but, though the ice immediately about the ships seemed
rather looser than the day before, it hourly set in again so fast, that
there appeared no probability of getting the ships out, without a strong
east or north-east wind.

On the 3d, the weather being very fine, clear, and calm, they perceived
that the ships had been driven far to the eastward. The ice, however,
was much closer than before; and the passage by which they had come in
from the westward quite closed up, with n