Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/170

126 from the powerful influence of the sun, which we had experienced in the commencement of the week; the snow that had generally incrusted its surface, was nearly melted away, and the temperature of the day, the thermometer being at 36, had much contributed to its dissolution. At one o'clock a thick fog set in, but we, being tolerably free from ice, felt less anxiety than is usual on such occasions; about six o'clock the fog cleared, and we changed our course to the westward, determined to try what a higher latitude might produce, but we had not proceeded longer than five hours, when, towards the north-west, the brightest ice blink I had ever seen, stretched across the horizon from the south-west to north-east; I beheld this splendid phenomenon with very great concern, as it foreboded further opposition to the much-desired object of getting to the western land. Being joined by the Experiment of Hull, and the Jean of Peterhead, the masters came on board and gave the sorrowful tidings of the impracticability of getting near the west land, which they had been trying, on the assurance that the whales had resorted to it last year: they stated, that they had endeavoured to effect that object, from the 78° to the 71° of latitude, but that a range of impenetrable ice had compelled them to relinquish the attempt. They also remarked, that the ice had not pursued its usual summer course; that fields and floes were more numerous; that the fields were fixed, and that the floes had not gone to the south. The