After this we saw but one iceberg and one heavy loose piece previous to our clearing Davis’s Strait. On the 17th at noon we had passed to the southward of the Arctic Circle, and from this latitude to that of about 58° we had favourable winds and weather; but we remarked on this, as on several other occasions during this season, that a northerly breeze, contrary to ordinary observation, brought more moisture with it than any other. In the course of this run we also observed more drift-wood than we had ever done before, which I thought might possibly be owing to the very great prevalence of easterly winds this season driving it further from the coast of Greenland than usual. We saw very large flocks of kittiwakes, some of the whales called finners, and, as we supposed, a few also of the black kind, together with multitudes of porpoises. On the morning of the 24th, notwithstanding the continuance of a favourable breeze, we met, in the latitude of 58½°, so heavy a swell from the north-eastward as to make the ship labour violently for four-and-twenty hours. The northerly wind then dying away was succeeded by a light air from the eastward with constant rain. A calm then followed for several hours, causing the ship to roll heavily in the hollow of the sea. On the morning of the 25th we had again an easterly wind, which in a few hours reduced us to the close-reefed topsails and reefed courses. At eight P.M. it freshened to a gale, which brought us under the main-topsail and storm-staysails, and at seven the following morning it increased to a gale of such violence from N.E.b.N. as does not very often occur at sea in these latitudes. The gusts were at times so tremendous as to set the sea quite in a foam, and threatened to tear the sails out of the bolt-ropes. It abated a little for four hours in the evening, but from nine P.M. till two the following morning blew with as great violence as before, with a high sea, and very heavy rain; constituting altogether as inclement weather as can well be conceived for about eighteen hours. The wind gradually drew to the westward, with dry weather, after the gale began to abate, and at six A.M. we were enabled to bear up and run to the eastward with a strong gale at north-west.