We left Aberdeen on July 1, 1857; and after a favourable run across the Atlantic, we made our first acquaintance with the Arctic Seas when near the meridian of Cape Farewell, by falling in with the drift-wood annually brought from Arctic Asia by the great current known as the Spitzbergen current--the shattered and mangled state of these pine logs bearing evidence of their long water-and-ice-borne drift. This great Arctic current brings masses of ice from the Spitzbergen seas, at seasons completely filling up the fiords, harbours, and indentations on the south coast of Greenland, and often in a pack extending for 100 miles southward of Cape Farewell. A whole fleet of whale ships were, in June, 1777, beset in lat. 76° north, and nearly in the meridian of Spitzbergen, and were drifted southward by the current, until one by one they were crushed. The last and only surviving ship arrived in October, in latitude 61°, in Davis’ Straits, and the crew escaped to the land near Cape Farewell, 116 in number, out of 450 men, who only a few short months before were looking forward to a happy return to their homes. Late in the summer, the weather mild and the nights short, and with steam-power at command, we had no occasion for much anxiety about this ice, but determined to push direct for Frederickshaab, and with a fair wind we steered to pass within sight of Cape Farewell. On the night of the 13th July, we were becalmed, and on the following day we steamed slowly to the north-westward, amidst countless numbers of sea-birds. At daylight the coast of Greenland showed out in all its wild magnificence. Cape Farewell bore north 45° east, distant twenty-five miles; but from the peculiar formation of the adjacent land the actual cape is difficult to distinguish. Hitherto we had not seen the Spitzbergen ice; and we hoped that we might follow the coast round to Frederickshaab without obstruction; but in the course of the forenoon a sudden fall in the temperature of the sea, with a haziness in the atmosphere to the northward, indicated our approach to ice. Straggling and water-washed pieces were soon met with, and in the evening the distant murmur of the sea, as it broke upon the edge of ice-floes, warned us of our being near to a pack.