Narrative of Discovery and Adventure in the Polar Seas and Regions: ... and an Account of the Whale-fishery |
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adventurers afforded afterwards alarm amid animal appeared Arctic Arctic Ocean attempt Baffin Barentz bear boats called Cape Cape Farewell Captain Parry Captain Ross carried Cetacea climate coast cold commander continued covered crew Davis degree direction discovered discovery dreary Dutch Esquimaux expedition extreme farther favourable feet fish fishery floating floe formed frozen gale Greenland Greenland Seas harpoon heat Hecla hope icebergs Igloolik inlet Island Lancaster Sound land latitude length masses Melville Island Melville Peninsula miles mountains Muscovy Company named natives navigators North Cape northern northward Nova Zembla obliged observed ocean open sea party passage penetrate Peterhead pieces Pole proceeded provisions reached regions rein-deer rocks round sailed sailors Scoresby seamen season Sebastian Cabot seems ship shore side snow soon Sound Southampton Island southward species Spitzbergen Strait surface temperature tempest thick tion vessels voyage western westward whale wind winter
Popular passages
Page 109 - Miserable they! Who, here entangled in the gathering ice, Take their last look of the descending sun ; While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost, The long long night, incumbent o'er their heads, Falls horrible.
Page 299 - But the ludicrous soon took the place of all other feelings ; in such a crowd" and such confusion, all serious thought was impossible, while the new buoyancy of our spirits made us abundantly willing to be amused by the scene which now opened. Every man was hungry, and was to be fed ; all were ragged, and were to be clothed ; there was not one to whom washing was not indispensable, nor one whom his beard did not deprive of all human semblance. All, everything too, was to be done at once : it was...
Page 289 - Sinbad, that it even was a mountain of iron, or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc. But Nature had here erected no monument to denote the spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of her great and dark powers...
Page 77 - On seeing his intended prey, he gets quietly into the water, and swims to a leeward position, from whence, by frequent short dives, he silently makes his approaches, and so arranges his distance, that at the last dive he comes to the spot where the seal is lying. If the poor animal attempts to escape by rolling into the water, he falls into the paws of the bear ; if, on the contrary, he lies still, his destroyer makes a powerful spring, kills him on the ice, and devours him at leisure.
Page 29 - ... the sound of voices, which, during the cold weather, could be heard at a much greater distance than usual, served now and then to break the silence which reigned around us, a silence far different from that peaceable composure, which characterizes the landscape of a cultivated country ; it was the death-like stillness of the most dreary desolation, and the total absence of animated existence.
Page 45 - It is very difficult to ascertain the precise condition of the weather in distant ages. The thermometer was not invented till 1590, by the celebrated Sanctorio ; nor was that valuable instrument reduced to a correct standard before the year 1724, by the skill of Fahrenheit. We have hence no observations of temperature which go farther back than a century.
Page 174 - English apparel), he was upon the sudden much amazed thereat; and beholding advisedly the same with silence a good while, as though he would...
Page 30 - ... destruction. Before the end of June, the shoals of ice in the .Arctic Seas are commonly divided, scattered, and dissipated. But the atmosphere is then almost continually damp, and loaded with vapour. At this season of the year, a dense fog generally covers the surface of the sea, of a milder temperature indeed than the frost-smoke, yet produced by the inversion of the same cause.
Page 184 - The death of Secretary Walsingham occurring at this period was a severe blow to the cause, while the invasion by the Spanish Armada soon followed, and engrossed for a space all the thoughts and energies of the nation. Mr Sanderson still continued the steady friend of Davis ; but, unable to obtain resources for...
Page 116 - At the same time the ships were separated by large fields of ice, and could communicate only by beating drums and firing muskets, till they were able to warp round and rejoin each other. They enjoyed now the most favourable breeze ; but all was rendered vain by the state of the ice. " Winds we have had at will, but ice and fogs too much against our wills if it had pleased the Lord God otherwise.