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iii the Western Arctic Sea. ■4i> LETTER VIII. Ehar Broth kr, Winter Harbour, 12th Nov. 1819. My last, of the 1st October, would inform you of our arrival in this place in the afternoon of Sunday the Kith. Since that day our proceedings and employments have been of a description more related to quiet domestic life, tjian to the usual duties and labours of the seamen on a voyage. We have now been long enough in this bay to discover that, although it was fixed upon more from necessity than choice, it is, in fact, the only spot, on all the coast which we have examined, where we could have been in perfect shelter and safety. The ships are placed nearest to the west side of the bay, the Hecla, although the largest, the farthest in, about two hundred and fifty yards from the west shore, and half a mile from the bottom of the bay. The Griper lies a little farther out; but both equally well protected from the external sea and ice. No sooner were the vessels in their place than preparations were commenced for adopting every measure requisite to secure them from danger, and to preserve and promote the health, spirits, and comfort, of every member of the expedition. The service was entirely new, and although we had in both ships a master, a mate, and several seamen, who had been long accus* tomed to visit the arctic seas, yet their voyages were always ter minated in the course of one summer, and the ships and crew? were always enabled to return home before the winter set in. Our expedition was of a very different kind. We came out with the express purpose of passing the whole winter, if necessary, in the midst of regions and climates of the nature of which no man could give any thing beyond conjectural information. We were aware that in the latitude of 75° the sun would withdraw below the horizon for three months together. We knew that, even in summer, the seas around us were covered with ice float ing or aground. We knew that the summer was always far ad vanced, or rather near its close, before navigation, even in the open sea, was practicable. How long, however, we might be detained by the ice in the harbour—how late in the summer it might be before the straits and seas were in a navigable state, to allow us to prosecute our voyage to the westward—these, and many other matters of importance, we had no means to learn. The first care has been to trim the ships in the way the most likely to preserve the rrtasts, sails, and rigging. The lower masts alone to stand; only the main-top-mast of the Hecla is retained, Voyaors, Fol. V. H •