suddenly stretches to the north, sometimes proceeding on a meridian to the latitude of 80°, at others forming a deep sinuosity, extending two or three degrees to the northward, and then south-easterly to Cherie Island, which, having passed, it assumes a more direct course a little to the southward of east, until it forms a junction with the Siberian or Nova Zemblan coast. During the winter and spring months, the Polar ice seems closely to embrace the whole of the northern shores of Russia, to the eastward of Nova Zembla, and filling, in a great measure, Behring’s Strait and the sea to the northward of it, continues in contact with the Polar face of the American continent, following the line of the coast to the eastward, until it effects a junction with the ice in the Spitzbergen Sea, or in the great north-western bays of Hudson and Baffin, or is terminated by land yet undiscovered. That remarkable promontory midway between Jan Mayen and Cherie Islands, formed by the sudden stretch of the ice to the north, constitutes the line of separation between the east, or _whaling_, and west, or _sealing_, ice of the fishers; and the deep bay lying to the east of this promontory, which may be called the _Whale-fisher’s Bight_, invariably forms the only pervious track for proceeding to fishing latitudes northward. When the ice at the extremity of this bay occurs so strong and compact as to prevent the approach to the shores of Spitzbergen, and the advance northward beyond the latitude of 75° or 76°, it is said to be a _close season_, and, on the contrary, it is called an _open season_ when an uninterrupted navigation extends along the western coast of Spitzbergen to Hackluyt’s Headland.