The Journey to the Polar Sea. Franklin John
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used before they would sign the agreement; they minutely scanned all our intentions, weighed every circumstance, looked narrowly into the plan of our route, and still more circumspectly to the prospect of return. Such caution on the part of the northern mariners forms a singular contrast with the ready and thoughtless manner in which an English seaman enters upon any enterprise, however hazardous, without inquiring or desiring to know where he is going or what he is going about.
The brig Harmony, belonging to the Moravian Missionary Society and bound to their settlement at Nain on the coast of Labrador, was lying at anchor. With the view of collecting some Esquimaux words and sentences, or gaining any information respecting the manners and habits of that people, Doctor Richardson and myself paid her a visit. We found the passengers who were going out as Missionaries extremely disposed to communicate; but as they only spoke the German and Esquimaux languages, of which we were ignorant, our conversation was necessarily much confined; by the aid however of an Esquimaux and German Dictionary some few words were collected which we considered might be useful. There were on board a very interesting girl and a young man who were natives of Disco in old Greenland; both of them had fair complexions, rather handsome features, and a lively manner; the former was going to be married to a resident Missionary and the latter to officiate in that character. The commander of the vessel gave me a translation of the Gospel of St. John in the Esquimaux language printed by the Moravian Society in London.
June 16.
The wind being unfavourable for sailing I went on shore with Dr. Richardson and took several lunar observations at the place of our former residence. The result obtained was latitude 58 degrees 56 minutes 56 seconds North; longitude 3 degrees 17 minutes 55 seconds West; variation 27 degrees 50 minutes West; dip of the magnetic needle 74 degrees 33 minutes 20 seconds. In the afternoon the wind changed in a squall some points towards the north and the Prince of Wales made the preparatory signal for sea. At three P.M. the ships weighed, an hour too early for the tide; as soon as this served we entered into the passage between Hoy and Pomona, and had to beat through against a very heavy swell which the meeting of a weather tide and a strong breeze had occasioned.
Some dangerous rocks lie near the Pomona shore and on this side also the tide appeared to run with the greatest strength. On clearing the outward projecting points of Hoy and Pomona we entered at once into the Atlantic and commenced our voyage to Hudson's Bay, having the Eddystone, Wear and Harmony, Missionary brig, in company.
The comparisons of the chronometers this day indicated that Arnold's Numbers 2148 and 2147 had slightly changed their rates since they had been brought on board; fortunately the rate of the former seems to have increased nearly in the same ratio as the other has lost, and the mean longitude will not be materially affected.
Being now fairly launched into the Atlantic I issued 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 North-West 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 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 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 meeting.
On the 27th, being in latitude 57 degrees 44 minutes 21 seconds North, longitude 47 degrees 31 minutes 14 seconds West and the weather calm, we tried our 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 shown by the register thermometer during the descent was from 52 to 40.5 degrees; 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 degrees, 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 degrees, whilst that of the air was 46 degrees. This experiment in showing 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 the surface.
On the 28th we tacked to avoid an extensive stream of sailing ice. The temperature of the water fell to 39.5 degrees when we were near it, but was at 41 degrees when at the distance of half a mile. The thermometer in the air remained steadily at 40 degrees. Thus the proximity of this ice was not so decidedly indicated by the decrease of the temperature of either the air or water as I have before witnessed, which was probably owing to the recent arrival of the stream at this point and its passing at too quick a rate for the effectual diffusion of its chilling influence beyond a short distance. Still the decrease in both cases was sufficient to have given timely warning for a ship's performing any evolution that would have prevented the coming in contact with it had the thickness of the weather precluded a distant view of the danger.
The approach to ice would be more evidently pointed out in the Atlantic, or wherever the surface is not so continually chilled by the passing and the melting of ice as in this sea; and I should strongly recommend a strict hourly attention to the thermometrical state of the water at the surface in all parts where ships are exposed to the dangerous concussion of sailing icebergs, as a principal means of security.
The following day our ship came near another stream of ice and the approach to it was indicated