than usual; and, besides the fulmar peterels, boatswains, and
kittiwakes, we saw, for the first time, some rotges, dovekies, or
black guillemots, and terns, the latter known best to seamen by
the name of the Greenland swallow.

On the clearing up of a fog on the morning of the 24th, we saw a
long chain of icebergs, extending several miles, in a N.b.W. and
S.b.E. direction; and, as we approached them, we found a quantity
of "floe-ice" intermixed with them, beyond which, to the westward,
nothing but ice could be seen. At noon we had soundings, with one
hundred and twenty fathoms of line, on a bottom of fine sand,
which makes it probable that most of the icebergs were aground in
this place. In the afternoon we sailed within the edge of the ice,
as much as a light westerly wind would admit, in order to approach
the western land. Some curious effects of atmospheric refraction
were observed this evening, the low ice being at times considerably
raised in the horizon, and constantly altering its appearance.

The weather being nearly calm on the morning of the 25th, all the
boats were kept ahead, to tow the ships through the ice to the
westward. It remained tolerably open till four P.M., when a
breeze, freshening up from the eastward, caused the ice, through
which we had lately been towing, to close together so rapidly,
that we had scarcely time to hoist up the boats before the ships
were immovably "beset." The clear sea which we had left was about
four miles to the eastward of us, while to the westward nothing
but one extensive field of ice could be seen. It is impossible to
conceive a more helpless situation than that of a ship thus beset,
when all the power that can be applied will not alter the
direction of her head a single degree of the compass.