A thick fog came on again at night, and prevailed till near noon on the 18th, when we came to a close but narrow stream of ice, lying exactly across our course, and at right angles to the main body of the ice.  As this stream extended to the eastward as far as we could see from the “crow’s nest,” an endeavour was made to push the ships with all sail through the narrowest part.  The facility with which this operation, technically called “boring,” is performed, depends chiefly on having a fresh and free wind, with which we were not favoured on this occasion; so that, when we had forced the ships about one hundred yards into the ice, their way was completely stopped.  The stream consisted of such small pieces of ice, that, when an attempt was made to warp the ships ahead by fastening lines to some of the heaviest masses near them, the ice itself came home, without the ships being moved forward.—­Every effort to extricate them from this helpless situation proved fruitless for more than two hours, when the Hecla was at length backed out, and succeeded in pushing through another part of the stream in which a small opening appeared just at that moment.  All our boats were immediately despatched to the assistance of the Griper, which still remained beset, and which no effort could move in any direction We at length resorted to the expedient of sending a whale-line to her from the Hecla, and then, making all sail upon the latter ship, we succeeded in towing her out, head to wind, till she was enabled to proceed in clear water.  The crossing of this stream of ice, of which, the breadth scarcely exceeded three hundred yards, occupied us constantly for more than five hours, and may serve as an example of the detention to which ships are liable in this kind of navigation.

Early on the morning of the 21st the fog cleared away, and discovered to us the land called by Davis, Hope Sanderson and the Woman’s Islands, being the first land we had seen in sailing northward into Baffin’s Bay, from the lat. of 633/4 deg.  We found ourselves in the midst of a great number of very high icebergs, of which I counted, from the crow’s-nest, eighty-eight, besides many smaller ones.

Having now reached the latitude of 73 deg. without seeing a single opening in the ice, and being unwilling to increase our distance from Sir James Lancaster’s Sound by proceeding much farther to the northward, I determined once more to enter the ice in this place, and to try the experiment of forcing our way through it, in order to get into the open sea.  Being therefore favoured with clear weather, and a moderate breeze from the southeastward, we ran into the ice, which for the first two miles consisted of detached pieces, but afterward of floes of considerable extent, and six or seven feet in thickness.  The wind died away towards midnight, and the weather was serene and clear.

At six A.M. on the 23d, a thick fog came on, which rendered it impossible to see our way any farther.  We therefore warped to an iceberg, to which the ships were made fast at noon, to wait the clearing up of the fog, being in lat. 73 deg. 04’ 10”, long. 60 deg. 11’ 30”.  At eight P.M. the weather cleared up, and a few small pools of open water were seen here and there, but the ice was generally as close as before, and the wind being to the westward of north, it was not deemed advisable to move.