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PHIPPS’S JOURNAL« 555
The Careafs being becalmed very near the ifland in the evening, Captain Lutwidge
took that opportunity of obtaining the following exact account of its extent, which he
communicated to me:
« At ten P. M., the body of Moffen ifland bearing E. by S., diftant two miles ;
founded thirteen fathoms, rocky ground, with light brown mud, and broken hells.
Sent the mafter on fhore, who found the ifland to be nearly of a round form, about
two miles in diameter, with a lake or large pond of water in the middle, all frozen over,
except thirty or forty yards round the edge of it, which was water, with loofe pieces
of broken ice, and fo fhallow they walked through it, and went over upon the firm folid
ice. ‘Lhe ground between the fea and the pond is from half a cable’s length to a quarter
of a mile broad, and the whole ifland covered with gravel and fmall ftones, without the
leaft verdure or vegetation of any kind. They faw only one piece of drift wood (about
three fathom long, with a root on it, and as thick as the Carcafs’s mizen-matt) which
had been thrown up over the high part of the land, and lay upon the declivity towards
the pond. They faw three bears, and a number of wild ducks, geefe, and other fea-
fowls, with birds’ nefts all over the ifland. There was an infcription over the grave of
a Dutchman, who was buried there in July 1771. It was low water at eleven o’clock
when the boat landed, and the tide appeared to flow eight or nine feet ; at that time we
found a current carrying the fhip to the N. W. from the ifland, which before carried
us to the S.E. (at the rate of a mile an hour) towards it. On the weft fide is a fine
white fandy bottom, from two fathoms, at a fhip’s length from the beach, to five fa-
thoms, at half a mile’s diftance off.”
The foundings all about this ifland, and to the eaftward, feem to partake of the na-
ture of the coaft. ‘To the weftward the rocks were high, and the fhores bold and
fteep too ; here the land fhelved more, and the foundings were fhoal, from thirty to ten.
fathom. It appears extraordinary that none of the old navigators, who are fo accurate
and minute in their defcriptions of the coaft, have taken any notice of this ifland, fo
remarkable and different from every thing they had feen on the weltern coaft; unlefs
we fhould fuppofe that it did not then exift, and that the {treams from the great ocean
up the weft fide of Spitfbergen, and through the Waygat’s Straits, meeting here, have
raifed this bank, and occafioned the quantity of ice that generally blocks up the coaft
hereabouts. At four in the afternoon hoifted out the boat, and tried the current, which
fet N. E. by E., at the rate of three quarters of a mile an hour. At midnight Moffen
ifland bore from S. E. by S. to S. by W., diftant about five miles.
The twenty-fixth, about two in the morning, we had little wind, with fog ; made the
fignals to the Carcafs for keeping company. At half an hour aftex three in the after-
noon, we were in longitude 12° 20’ 45’ E.; variation, by mean of five azimuths, 12°
47/ W. At nine we faw land to the eaftward ; fteering to the northward with little
wind, and no ice in fight, except what we had paffed.
The twenty-feventh, working {till to the N. E., we met with fome loofe ice; how-
ever, from the opennefs of the fea hitherto, fince we had pafled Deer Field, I had great
hopes of getting far to the northward ; but about noon, being in the latitude of eighty
and forty-eight, by our reckoning, we were {topped by the main body of the ice, which
we found lying in a line, nearly eaft and weft, quite folid. Having tacked, I brought
to, and founded clofe to the edge of the ice, in feventy-nine fathom, muddy bottom.
The wind being ftill eafterly, I worked up ciofe to the edge of the ice, coafting it all
the way. At fix in the evening we were in longitude 14° 59° 30’ E., by obfervation.
The twenty-eighth, at midnight, the latitude obférved was 80° 37’, ‘The main body
ef the ice ftill lying in the fame direction, we continued working to the eaftward, and
4B 2 found
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