eg. 31' E. Soon after, the sky became clouded, and the air very
cold. We continued our course to the south, and passed a piece of weed
covered with barnacles, which a brown albatross was picking off. At ten
o'clock, we passed a very large ice island; it was not less than three or
four miles in circuit. Several more being seen a-head, and the weather
becoming foggy, we hauled the wind to the northward; but in less than two
hours, the weather cleared up, and we again stood south.

On the 30th, at four o'clock in the morning, we perceived the clouds, over
the horizon to the south, to be of an unusual snow-white brightness, which
we knew denounced our approach to field-ice. Soon after, it was seen from
the top-mast-head; and at eight o'clock, we were close to its edge. It
extended east and west, far beyond the reach of our sight. In the situation
we were in, just the southern half of our horizon was illuminated, by the
rays of light reflected from the ice, to a considerable height. Ninety-
seven ice hills were distinctly seen within the field, besides those on the
outside; many of them very large, and looking like a ridge of mountains,
rising one above another till they were lost in the clouds. The outer or
northern edge of this immense field, was composed of loose or broken ice
close packed together, so that it was not possible for any thing to enter
it. This was about a mile broad, within which, was solid ice in one
continued compact body. It was rather low and flat (except the hills), but
seemed to increase in height, as you traced it to the south; in which
direction it extended beyond our sight. Such mountains of ice as these, I
believe, were never seen in the Greenland seas, at least, not that I ever
heard or read of, so that we cannot draw a comparison between the ice here
and there.

It must be allowed, that these prodigious ice mountains must add such
additional weight to the ice fields which inclose them, as cannot but make
a great difference between the navigating this icy sea and that of
Greenland.

I will not say it was impossible any where to get farther to the south; but
the attempting it would have been a dangerous and rash enterprise, and
what, I believe, no man in my situation would have thought of. It was,
indeed, _my_ opinion, as well as the opinion of most on board, that
this ice extended quite to the pole, or perhaps joined on some land, to
which it had been fixed from the earliest time; and that it is