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In the spring of 1833, on the breaking up of a frost, 'La Lilloise, under the command of that brave officer, succeeded in passing through the Banquise, nearly up to latitude 69 degrees, and in surveying about thirty leagues of coast to the south of that latitude. After having returned to her anchorage off the coast of Iceland, he sailed again in July for a second attempt.
Two hours later we had doubled the extremity of the ice-barrier, and there lay before our eyes a sparkling sea, entirely open. The French word is banquise, which means the vast stretch of icebergs farther south than the barrière or ice wall. Entirely free from ice? No. It would have been premature to affirm this as a fact.
"Voyage of Discovery along the Banquise, north of Iceland, by 'LA REINE HORTENSE. "It fell to the lot of an officer of the French navy, M. Jules de Blosseville, to attempt to explore those distant parts, and to shed an interest over them, both by his discoveries and by his tragical and premature end.
Generally speaking, the Banquise that we coasted along for three days, and that we traced with the greatest care for nearly a hundred leagues, presented to us an irregular line of margin, running from W.S.W. to E.N.E., and thrusting forward toward the south-capes and promontories of various sizes, and serrated like the teeth of a saw.
Every time that we bore up for E.N.E., we soon found ourselves in one of the gulfs of ice formed by the indentations of the Banquise. It was only by steering to the S.W. that we got free from the floating icebergs, to resume our former course as soon as the sea was clear.
The Pack is a term very often used in a wide sense to include any area of sea-ice, no matter what form it takes or how disposed. The French term is "banquise de derive". "Pack-ice". A more restricted use than the above, to include hummocky floes or close areas of young ice and light floes.
These unhoped-for circumstances opened a new field to our explorations, by allowing us to survey all that part of the Banquise which extends to the north of Iceland, thus forming a continuation to the observations made by the 'Recherche, and to those which we ourselves intended to make during our voyage to Greenland.
We considered this as the most critical moment of our expedition. Having tried this icy barrier at several points, we found a narrow and tortuous channel, into which we ventured; and it was not till after an hour of anxieties that we got a view of the open sea, and of a passage into it. From this moment we were able to coast along the Banquise without interruption.
Ever since leaving Iceland the steamer had been heading east-north-east by compass, but during the whole of the ensuing night she shaped a south-east course; the thick mist rendering it unwise to stand on any longer in the direction of the banquise, as they call the outer edge of the belt that hems in Eastern Greenland. About three A.M. it cleared up a little.
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