May 3d, Sailed for Charles Island on the west coast of Spitzbergen, the most southern part of which is in latitude 78°.
We were much impeded in our course by ice, which, according to the Greenland phrase, was very rank, around us. The ship struck occasionally on masses of considerable size, to the no little surprise of those sailors who were making their first voyage hither. We had this day a piece of fresh beef cooked for dinner, which we brought from England; it tasted as well, and was as full of juice as if newly killed: as did all the fowls which we got at Shetland: These were hung by the legs to a rope upon the quarter-deck; but neither plucked nor gutted. Our eggs likewise preserved their good taste. This proves the antiseptic power of intense cold.
4th, Intense frost. Ice-bound, with several sail in company.
5th, Strong gales. Unhung the rudder.
6th, The ship towed through very rank ice, by four boats manned by half the crew. Ten sail in company.
7th, Made fast to an iceberg about seventy yards long and forty broad, and about twenty feet above the surface of the water. It was very much furrowed, and, from its great depth, drifted but little, while the lesser fragments of ice were driven past it at the rate of about two knots an hour.
I had this day a complete proof of the fallacy of the opinion, which maintained that salt water did not freeze. All around the ship, ice was formed on the surface of the water; I observed the spiculæ darting with considerable velocity, and in an immense variety of forms. This ice, when newly formed, is of a bay colour, and when it has attained the thickness of window glass is called by the sailors, bay ice. It is rough on the surface, and opaque; if the frost be not interrupted by a swell of the sea, or storm, the salt-water ice often extends to an immense distance. It is by the Greenland sailors termed a field, when of such extent that the eye cannot reach its bounds. The smaller fragments of salt-water ice are called seal meadows, and on them these animals often sport by hundreds.
In storms large masses of ice are frequently piled on each other, to a considerable height; these are called packs, and often assume a very fantastic appearance. The grinding noise occasioned by the collision of those huge masses of ice against each other, and against the ship, not only fills the mind of the auditor with a degree of horror, but, for a considerable time, deprives him of the sense of hearing.
Storms in those seas are so extremely dangerous, that the most powerful pens could convey but a faint representation of their horrific sublimity.— The fury of the ocean is but the least of the enemies the sailor has to contend with. If the ship, during a storm, should be encircled by ice, there is hardly a possibility of avoiding impending fate.
8th, Discovered the south point of Prince Charles’ Island, bearing east, distant six leagues.