Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/93

 Since the days when Baffin first penetrated these waters, in the Discovery, a vessel of fifty-eight tons burden, (it was in the year 1616,) a fleet of whale-ships has annually run this gauntlet. The fleet was once large, numbering upwards of a hundred sail; but of latter years it has been reduced to less than one tenth of its former magnitude. Great though the danger, it has always been a favorite route of the whale fishers. Many a stout ship has gone down with her sides mercilessly crushed in by the "thick-ribbed ice;" but those vessels which escape disaster almost uniformly return home with holds well filled with the blubber and oil of unlucky whales whose evil destiny led them to frequent the waters about Lancaster Sound, Pond's Bay, and the coasts below.

The "middle ice" is always more or less in motion, and is never tightly closed up, even in midwinter. Of this we have abundant proof in the fate of the Steamer Fox, which was caught towards the close of the autumn, and released in the spring, after a perilous winter drift, down near the Arctic Circle.

As the summer advances, it becomes more and more broken up; and, little by little, the solid land-belt, which is known as the "fast" or "land-ice," is encroached upon. Of this, however, there usually remains a narrow strip up to the close of the season. To it the whalers cling most tenaciously, and the exploring vessels have usually followed their example, taking always the last crack that has opened, or, as they call it, the "in-shore lead." They have naturally a great horror of being caught in the "pack." The "fast" gives them security if the wind brings the ice down upon them from the westward, for they can always saw a dock for their ships in the solid ice, or find a