but they were disappointed in every instance.

Thursday, July 1.

The month of July set in more favourably; and aided by fresh breezes we
advanced rapidly to the westward, attended daily by numerous fulmars and
shearwaters. The Missionary brig had parted company on the 22nd of June.
We passed directly over that part of the ocean where the Sunken Land of
Buss is laid down in the old, and continued in the Admiralty charts. Mr.
Bell, the commander of the Eddystone, informed me that the pilot who
brought his ship down the Thames told him that he had gained soundings in
twelve feet somewhere hereabout; and I am rather inclined to attribute
the very unusual and cross sea we had in this neighbourhood to the
existence of a bank than to the effect of a gale of wind which we had
just before experienced; and I cannot but regret that the commander of
the ship did not try for soundings at frequent intervals.

ENTER DAVIS STRAITS.

By the 25th July we had opened the entrance of Davis Straits and in the
afternoon spoke the Andrew Marvell, bound to England with a cargo of
fourteen fish. The master informed us that the ice had been heavier this
season in Davis Straits than he had ever recollected, and that it lay
particularly close to the westward, being connected with the shore to the
northward of Resolution Island and extending from thence within a short
distance of the Greenland coast; that whales had been abundant but the
ice so extremely cross that few could be killed. His ship, as well as
several others, had suffered material injury, and two vessels had been
entirely crushed between vast masses of ice in latitude 74 degrees 40
minutes North, but the crews were saved. We inquired anxiously but in