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 here, that
is to the south of this parallel, where all the ice we find scattered up
and down to the north, is first formed, and afterwards broken off by gales
of wind, or other causes, and brought to the north by the currents, which
we always found to set in that direction in the high latitudes.
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