Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 | Page 7

a general memorandum for the guidance of the officers during the prosecution of the service on which we were engaged, and communicated to them the several points of information that were expected from us by my instructions. I also furnished them with copies of the signals which had been agreed upon between Lieutenant Parry and myself, to be used in the event of our reaching the northern coast of America, and falling in with each other.
At the end of the month of June, our progress was found to have been extremely slow, owing to a determined N.W. wind and much sea. We had numerous birds hovering round the ship; principally fulmars (procellaria glacialis,) and shearwaters, (procellaria puffinus,) and not unfrequently saw shoals of grampusses sporting about, which the Greenland seamen term finners from their large dorsal fin. Some porpoises occasionally appeared, and whenever they did, the crew were sanguine in their expectation of having a speedy change in the wind, which had been so vexatiously contrary, 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 22d 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.
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�� 40' N., but the crews were saved. We inquired anxiously, but in vain, for intelligence respecting Lieutenant Parry, and the ships under his command; but as he mentioned that the wind had been blowing strong from the northward for some time, which would, probably, have cleared Baffin's Bay of ice, we were disposed to hope favourably of his progress.
The clouds assumed so much the appearance of icebergs this evening, as to deceive most of the passengers and crew; but their imaginations had been excited by the intelligence we had received from the Andrew Marvell, that she had only parted from a cluster of them two days previous to our meetings.
On the 27th, being in latitude 57�� 44' 21" N., longitude 47�� 31' 14" W., and the weather calm we tried for soundings, but did not reach the bottom. The register thermometer was attached to the line just above the lead, and is supposed to have descended six hundred and fifty fathoms. A well-corked bottle was also fastened to the line, two hundred fathoms above the lead, and went down four hundred and fifty fathoms. The change in temperature, shewn by the register thermometer during the descent, was from 52�� to 40.5; and it stood at the latter point, when taken out of the tin case. The temperature of the water brought up in the bottle was 41��, being half a degree higher at four hundred and fifty than at six hundred and fifty fathoms, and four degrees colder than the water at the surface, which was then at 45��, whilst that of the air was 46��. This experiment in shewing the water to be colder at a great depth than at the surface, and in proportion to the increase of the descent, coincides with the observations of Captain Ross and Lieutenant Parry, on their late voyage to these seas, but is contrary to the results obtained by Captain Buchan and myself, on our recent voyage to the north, between Spitzbergen and Greenland, in which sea we invariably found the water brought from any great depth to be warmer than that at