Captain Hosken, the commander of the British Queen, gives a
for- midable account of the ice which he encountered in the outward passage. On the 18th of April he got entangled, and was an hour and a half en- deavouring to extricate himself from a pack. On the 19th he was again embayed, at half-past three in the morning- " When the sun arose, the ice was visible as far as the eye could reach, in'an unbroken line from N.E. by E., by the northward to N.W. by W.; at the same time icebergs innumerable in every direction, forming one of the most magnificent sights I ever beheld.
" The first iceberg we saw [on the 19th] was in lat. 43, long. 48.30, and this last in lat. 42.20, long. 50. I am quite sure there was an unbroken field of that extent ; and from what I heard from Captain Bailly, of the American packet-ship United States, I have no doubt the field ice extended, with very little break, to lat. 40.30, where Captain Bailly fell in with it on the morning of the 18th. Several other ships also fell in with it in the same longitude, and were completely stopped ; giving them an opportunity of killing seals, which were on it in great numbers.
" Some of the icebergs I estimate at little (if at all) less than a mile long and from 150 to 200 feet high. This field of ice was in large masses, some of them not less than 20 feet square by 6 feet thick or more."
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