Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/168

124 a great quantity of bay ice had formed on the edges of the floes, so that being perfectly smooth, and extending like an immense plain, it offered a striking contrast to the ponderous masses of every variety of form and size which rose behind it. The temperature of the atmosphere during the last three days, had been delightful, and the sun now exercised its genial influence on the snow, which covered the field and floes of ice. In their lowest parts were formed large pools, or lakes, of fresh water, from which tributary offerings were pouring in small channels, through cavities in the edge of the ice, to mingle with the waters of the ocean. A curious effect was produced by the sun's dazzling beams on lofty masses of the ice, whose summits over-arched their sides, or had openings in them, from whence long pendent icicles shone with a reflected transparency, the splendour of which nothing could exceed. The mass here exhibited was at least forty feet high and sixty in length.

The extraordinary fine and warm weather of the ninth and tenth instant, brought its usual consequence in this region; a most dense fog for three successive days, which kept us in much awful anxiety, to discover our situation, as perfect calms and strong breezes had prevailed, both of which are formidable enemies to the navigation of those seas. In the afternoon the fog abated, and we found ourselves in more open water than we had been in for some time. We saw a vessel, appearing to be deeply laden, and to be