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PHIPPS’S JOURNAL» 561
tain, to take its height with the barometer, which I determined at the fame time geo-
metrically with great care. By repeated obfervations here we found the latitude to be
79° 44’, which by the furvey correfponded exaétly with the latitude of Cloven Cliff,
determined before ; the longitude 9° 50’ 45” E ; dip 82° 8’ and three fourths ; varia-
tion 18° 57’ W.; which agrees alfo with the obfervation made on fhore in July. ‘The
tide flowed here half paft one, the fame as in Vogel Sang harbour.
Oppofite to the place where the inftruments {tood, was one of the moft remarkable
icebergs in this country. Icebergs are large bodies of ice filling the vallies between
the high mountains ; the face towards the fea is nearly perpendicular, and of a very
lively light green colour. That reprefented in the engraving, from a fketch by Mr,
D’ Auvergne upon the fpot, was about three hundred feet high, with a cafcade of water
iffuing out of it. The black mountains, white fnow, and beautiful colour of the ice,
make a very romantic and uncommon picture. Large pieces frequently break off
from the icebergs, and fall with great noife into the water: we oblerved one piece
which had floated out into the bay, and grounded in twenty-four fathom; it was
fifty feet high above the furface of the water, and of the fame beautiful colour as the
iceberg.
-A particular defcription of all the plants and animals will have a place inthe Appen-
dix. I fhall here mention fuch general obfervations as my fhort flay enabled me to
make. The {tone we found was chiefly a kind of marble, which diffolved eafily in
the marine acid. We perceived no marks of minerals of any kind, nor the leaft ap-
pearance of prefent, or remains of former, volcanoes. Neither did we meet with in-
feéts, or any fpecies of reptiles; not even the common earth-worm. We faw no
fprings or rivers, the water, which we found in great plenty, being all produced by the
melting of the fnow from the mountains. During the whole time we were in thefe
latitudes, there was no thunder or lightning. I muft alfo add, that I never found
what is mentioned by Marten (who is generally accurate in his obfervations, and faithful
in his account) of the fun at midnight refembling in appearance the moon; I faw no
difference in clear weather between the fun at midnight and any other time, but what
arofe from a different degree of altitude ; the brightnefs of the light appearing there,
as well as elfewhere, to depend upon the obliquity of his rays. ‘The fky was in general
loaded with hard white clouds ; fo that Ido not remember to have ever feen the fun
and the horizon both free from them even in the cleareft weather. We could always
perceive when we were approaching the ice, long before we faw it, by a bright appear-
ance near the horizon, which the two pilots called the blink of the ice. Wudfon re-
marked, that the fea where he met with ice was blue; but the green fea was free
from it. I was particularly attentive to obferve this difference, but could never dif-
cern it.
The driftwood in thefe feas has given rife to various opinions and conjectures, both
as to its nature and the place of its growth. All that which we faw (except the pipe-
ftaves taken notice of by Dr. Irving on the low ifland) was fir, and not worm-eaten. ‘The
place of its growth I had no opportunity of afcertaining.
The nature of the ice was a principal object of attention in this climate. We found
always a great {well near the edge of it; but whenever we got within the loofe ice, the
water was conitantly {mooth. The loofe fields and flaws, as well as the interior part
ot the fixed ice, were flat and low: with the wind blowing on the ice, the loofe parts
were always, to ule the phrafe of the Greenlandmen, packed ; the ice at the edges ap-
pearing rough, and piled up; this roughnefs and height I imagine to proceed from the
finaller pieces being thrown up by the force of the fea on the folid part. During the
VOL. I. 4C ume
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