Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/148

110 Lat. by observation, 73° 3’ N., Long. by chronometer, 9° 30’ W.

The wind changed to the south-west during the night, and blew very hard; in the morning, therefore, every inlet was tried in search of a passage, but in vain; in the course of the day we returned to the part that had closed yesterday, when we found that the fury of the gale had torn from these immense regions of ice, pieces of several acres in extent, and bad crumbled others to atoms, leaving the scattered fragments so numerous, that we were obliged to abandon all idea of getting through in that direction; in searching for another opening, the ice became so extremely crowded, that the ship was struck by several heavy pieces, With a violence that made it to recoil with the shock, and which nothing but its extraordinary strength could have withstood. Toward the evening the wind ceased, and became calm with a thick fog, when four ships besides our own were moored to a large piece of ice to prevent their drifting.

On the fog having cleared away, and the wind blowing strong from the north-east, we again resumed our labour of exploring a passage to the westward. In pursuing this object, nothing could exceed the anxiety of our hopes and fears during the three following days; while those impediments which had so repeatedly defeated our design, continued to render its accomplishment impossible. It was now fully ascertained by our