I cannot dismiss the subject of this enterprise without attempting to explain, as far as I am able, how it may have happened that the ice over which we passed was found to answer so little to the description of that observed by the respectable authorities quoted in a former part of this volume.[027] It frequently occurred to us, in the course of our daily journeys, that this may, in some degree, have arisen from our navigators’ having generally viewed the ice from a considerable height.  The only clear and commanding view on board a ship is that from the crow’s-nest; and Phipps’s most important remarks concerning the nature of the ice to the north of Spitzbergen were made from a station several hundred feet above the sea; and, as it is well known how much the most experienced eye may thus be deceived, it is possible enough that the irregularities which cost us so much time and labour may, when viewed in this manner, have entirely escaped notice, and the whole surface have appeared one smooth and level plain.

It is, moreover, possible, that the broken state in which we unexpectedly found the ice may have arisen, at least in part, from an unusually wet season, preceded, perhaps, by a winter of less than ordinary severity.  Of the latter we have no means of judging, there being no record, that I am aware of, of the temperature of that or any other winter passed in the higher latitudes; but, on comparing our Meteorological Register with some others kept during the corresponding season and about the same latitude,[028] it does appear that, though no material difference is observable in the mean temperature of the atmosphere, the quantity of rain which we experienced is considerably greater than usual; and it is well known how very rapidly ice is dissolved by a fall of rain.  At all events, from whatever cause it may have arisen, it is certain that, about the meridian on which we proceeded northward in the boats, the sea was in a totally different state from what Phipps experienced, as may be seen from comparing our accounts—­his ship being closely beset, near the Seven Islands, for several days about the beginning of August; whereas the Hecla, in the beginning of June, sailed about in the same neighbourhood without obstruction, and, before the close of July, not a piece of ice could be seen from Little Table Island.

I may add, in conclusion, that, before the middle of August, when we left the ice in our boats, a ship might have sailed to the latitude, of 82 deg. almost without touching a piece of ice; and it was the general opinion among us, that, by the end of that month, it would probably have been no very difficult matter to reach the parallel of 83 deg., about the meridian of the Seven Islands.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES

[001] This name being applied by the Esquimaux to several other portions of land, all of which are insular, or nearly so, it is probable that the word simply signifies an island.