In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on Bear Island owing to the ice, stood away to the north-west, reached Spitsbergen, and worked along the western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice barred further advance. On his way up and down the coast he gave many of the capes and bays the names they still bear, and generally did so well that on his return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had left the service two years before, and made a sort of special commissioner by the Muscovy Company "for certain years upon a stipend certain" to make further discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether there was an open sea further northward than had already been found. In addition to searching for the open polar sea, he was to convoy the _Mary Margaret_, in which were six Biscayners "expert in the killing of the whale," to Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was to start the British whaling trade, the _Mary Margaret_ being the first British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but hazardous occupation; and she was under the command of Thomas Edge, whose name is borne by Edge's Island. The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two years afterwards, a fleet of seven vessels went out to take part in the fishery and clear away the foreigners who had come to share in the good fortune; the company claiming the islands on the ground of their purely imaginary discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting their claim on the real discovery by Van Heemskerck. In this fleet as chief pilot was William Baffin—his second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept his eyes open, we have the first description of the Spitsbergen glaciers. He was at the time—the 29th of July—in Green Harbour in Ice Fjord. "One thing more I observed," he says, "in this harbour which I have thought good also to set down. Purposing on a time to walk towards the mountains, I, and two more of my company, ascended up a long plain hill, as we supposed it to be; but having gone a while upon it, we perceived it to be ice. Notwithstanding we proceeded higher up, about the length of half a mile, and as we went saw many deep rifts or gutters on the land of ice, which were cracked down through to the ground, or, at the least, an exceeding great depth; as we might well perceive by hearing the snow water run below, as it does oftentimes in a brook whose current is somewhat opposed with little stones. But for better satisfaction I brake down some pieces of ice with a staff I had in my hand, which in their falling made a noise on each side much like to a piece of glass thrown down the well within Dover Castle, whereby we did estimate the thickness or height of this ice to be thirty fathoms. This huge ice, in my opinion, is nothing but snow, which from time to time has for the most part been driven off the mountains; and so continuing and increasing all the time of winter (which may be counted three-quarters of the year)