ice-blink over them; but no clear water could be discovered to the
westward. The birds, which had hitherto been seen since our first
approach to the ice, were fulmar peterels, little auks, looms, and
a few gulls.

On the morning of the 3d the wind blew strong from the eastward,
with a short, breaking sea, and thick, rainy weather, which made
our situation for some hours rather an unpleasant one, the ice
being close under our lee. Fortunately, however, we weathered it
by stretching back a few miles to the southward. In the afternoon
the wind moderated, and we tacked again to the northward, crossing
the Arctic circle at four P.M., in the longitude of 57 deg. 27' W. We
passed at least fifty icebergs in the course of the day, many of
them of large dimensions. Towards midnight, the wind having
shifted to the southwest and moderated, another extensive chain of
very large icebergs appeared to the northward: as we approached
them the wind died away, and the ships' heads were kept to the
northward, only by the steerage way given to them by a heavy
southerly swell, which, dashing the loose ice with tremendous
force against the bergs, sometimes raised a white spray over the
latter to the height of more than one hundred feet, and, being
accompanied with a loud noise, exactly resembling the roar of
distant thunder, presented a scene at once sublime and terrific.
We could find no bottom near these icebergs with one hundred and
ten fathoms of line.

At four A.M. on the 4th we came to a quantity of loose ice, which
lay straggling among the bergs; and as there was a light breeze
from the southward, and I was anxious to avoid, if possible, the
necessity of going to the eastward, I pushed the Hecla into the
ice, in the hope of being able to make our way through it. We had
scarcely done so, however, before it fell calm; when the ship
became perfectly unmanageable, and was for some time at the mercy
of the swell, which drifted us fast towards the bergs. All the
boats were immediately sent ahead to tow; and the Griper's signal
was made not to enter the ice. After two hours' hard pulling, we
succeeded in getting the Hecla back again into clear water, and to
a sufficient distance from the icebergs, which it is very
dangerous to approach when there is a swell. At noon we were in
lat. 69 deg. 50' 47", long. 57 deg. 07' 56", being near the middle of the
narrowest part of Davis's Strait, which is here not more than
fifty leagues across.

O