more strenuous employment, they engaged in the composition of a Christmas piece, in which reference was made to the situation of the ships, and the service on which they were engaged. They also contributed to a weekly newspaper, entitled The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle, of which captain Sabine undertook the editorship. This gazette, consisting of one and twenty numbers, and deriving interest from the circumstances under which it was written, was printed on the return of the expedition. The dramatic performances being observed to be particularly successful in exhilarating the men, and also affording them employment in fitting up the theatre, and afterwards taking it to pieces, were repeated once every fortnight during the dark season.

Notwithstanding the intensity of the cold and the darkness, the officers generally rambled a little on shore every day; and they experienced no inconvenience, although the thermometer was from 30° to 50° below zero, provided there was no wind; but the least breath of air stirring made the cold intolerable, even when the thermometer was above zero. But these walks afforded no amusement; the dreary sameness of the scene, the torpid stillness and death-like silence, were calculated to inspire no feelings but those of melancholy. In this way the shortest day arrived, or rather the middle of the long night. A little before and after noon on that day, there was as much light as to enable them to read small print, held towards the southern horizon, and to walk comfortably for two hours. During the month of January, the thermometer generally ranged from 30° to 40° below zero. The scurvy now made its appearance, in one case, in the crew of the Hecla; and for some time its obstinacy caused not a little alarm: but the liberal use of antiscorbutics at length subdued it. Nothing contributed more to its cure than a daily supply of fresh mustard and cress, which captain Parry contrived to raise in his cabin, in boxes, filled earth, and placed near the stove-pipe. Though colourless for want of light, these herbs had as pungent a flavour as if they had grown in the open air. The officers still continued to walk on shore, though, as the thermometer in the open air sank at times to 50° below zero, they underwent a transition in passing from the open air to the cabin of from 80° to 100°, and in some instances 120° of temperature.

On the 7th of February, the full orb of the sun was visible above the horizon: this was the signal for making a show of preparations to leave this gloomy abode, though the officers were well aware that many tedious months must pass over before they could be free from their icy prison. The month of February was by far the coldest part of the arctic winter. On the 15th the thermometer descended to 55°, and remained for

fifteen hours not higher than 54° below zero. "We amused ourselves," says captain Parry, "in freezing some mercury during the continuance of this cold weather, and by beating it out on an anvil previously reduced to the temperature of the atmosphere. It did not appear to be very malleable when in this state, usually breaking after two or three blows from the hammer. On the 24th, the observatory constructed on shore was discovered to be on fire. All hands instantly went to work to extinguish the flames, by heaping snow upon them; the thermometer, at this time, was 44 below zero, or 76° below the freezing point. The men's faces at the fire presented a singular spectacle: almost every nose and cheek was frost-bitten, and became quite white in five minutes after being exposed to the weather; so that the medical men, with some others appointed to assist them, were obliged to go constantly round while the men were working at the fire, and to rub with snow the parts affected in order to restore animation. Captain Sabine's servant, in his anxiety to save the dipping needle from the observatory, ran out without his gloves; his fingers, in consequence, were so completely frozen that, his hands being plunged into a basin of cold water, the surface was immediately covered with a cake of ice from the intensity of the cold thus communicated to it; but animation could not be restored in this instance, and it was found necessary to resort to amputation."

As the cold relaxed, the ice which had for some time lined the ship's side began to melt, and about the 8th of March it became necessary to scrape off this coating. "It will scarcely be credited," says captain Parry, "that we this day (8th of March) removed above 100 buckets full of ice, each containing from five to six gallons, being the accumulation which had taken place in an interval of less than four weeks; and this immense quantity was the produce chiefly of the men's breath, and of the steam of their victuals during meals. The middle of April arrived without any perceptible thaw; but on the 30th, the temperature of the atmosphere underwent a remarkable change, the thermometer rising to the freezing point, or, as in this climate it might be termed more properly, the thawing point, being the first time it had been so high for eight months. To the men this appeared a summer temperature, and the authority of the officers was obliged to be interposed to prevent them from throwing aside their winter clothing. Animation began now to spread through the surrounding scene." The first ptarmigan made its appearance on the 12th of May, and the day after were seen the tracks of rein-deer and musk-oxen bending their course to the north. Thus their migration takes place in the first fine weather after the return of constant daylight. These symptoms and intimations of their approaching liberation were viewed

with delight by our navigators; but a shower of rain, which fell on the 24th of May, created in them even feelings of surprise; "we being so unaccustomed," says captain Parry, "to see water naturally in a fluid state at all, and much less to see it fall from the heavens, that such an occurrence became a matter of considerable curiosity, and I believe every person on board hastened upon deck to witness so interesting as well as novel a phenomenon." On the 1st of June, Captain Parry with some of the officers commenced an excursion into the interior of Melville Island. They reached its northern extremity without perceiving any land farther to the northward or the westward. On their return from this journey, which employed fifteen days, they found the vegetation round Winter Harbour shooting forth with wonderful vigour, and the ice was covered with innumerable pools of water; the purple flower of a species of saxifrage imparted beauty and gayness to a scene hitherto dreary in the extreme. By the middle of July, the thermometer stood as high as from 56° to 60°; and, at length, on the first day of August, the ships were able to effect their escape from Winter Harbour; but the immense quantity of floating ice with which the strait was beset rendered their progress extremely difficult. They had to face dangers which ships less strong, or men less resolute, vigilant, and skilful, could not have escaped from. They still struggled to proceed towards the west, but all their efforts were of no avail to get beyond the south-west extremity of Melville Island; and on the 16th of August the attempt was given up as impracticable. The furthest point which the expedition reached in the Polar Sea was in latitude 74° 26′ 25′′, and - longitude 113° 46′ 43′′.

On leaving Sir James Lancaster's Sound, the ships stood southward along the western shore of Baffin's Bay, with the view of surveying a coast but little known, and imperfectly seen in the former expedition. It was found to be indented with numerous deep bays or inlets: in one of these, about the lat. 70° 22′, a tribe of Esquimaux was met with, of whom captain Parry says, "Upon the whole, these people may be considered as in possession of every necessary of life, as well as most of the comforts and conveniences which can be enjoyed in so rude a state of society." On the 26th of September the ice was seen for the last time, and about the middle of November the ships arrived in the Thames. The crews returned with unimpaired health, after an absence of nearly eighteen months from their native country.

Besides the great additions to our geographical knowledge made by this expedition, it procured a copious stock of materials for scientific investigation. The magnetic phenomena observed, and those resulting from extreme cold, were highly

curious and important. During the winter months in those regions, such is the extreme dryness of the atmosphere, that no snow whatever falls, nor does a cloud, indeed, ever appear in the heavens. Whatever moisture might exist in the air, floats about in minute spicula, or needles, in various forms of crystallization. In very cold weather the breath of a person, at a little distance, looked exactly like the smoke of a musket just fired; and a party of men working on the ice seemed to be enveloped in a thick cloud. The smoke from the funnel, instead of ascending, floated horizontally for some miles from the ship. It is remarkable that the aurora borealis, though frequent, was by no means so vivid, or so rapid in its coruscations, as in a lower latitude. Between the parallels of 60° and 66° it usually displays a vivid blaze of light; but here it was extremely faint, and appeared almost always towards the southern horizon. From the variations and dipping of the magnetic needle observed during this expedition, it has been concluded that the magnetic pole may be supposed to be somewhere about lat. 72°, in long. 100°, or in the neighbourhood of Regent's Inlet.

CHAP. XIV.

PARRY'S VOYAGES.

Preparations for a Second Voyage.-Its Objects.-The Ships enter Frozen Strait. -Discover Duke of York's Bay.-Reach the Welcome.-Repulse Bay examined. Inlets explored.-The Ships frozen in at Winter Island.-Village of Esquimaux.-Their Character.-Talents of Iligliuk.-She draws a Map of the Coast.-The Ice breaks, and the Ships proceed.-Difficulties of the Navigation.-Fox's Channel.-Strait of the Hecla and Fury.-Impossible to pass to the westward.-Winter Quarters at Igloolik.-Snow Houses of the Es.quimaux.-Geographical Information obtained from them.-Excursions over Land.-Length of the Winter.-Return of the Ships.-Third Voyage of Parry. He winters in Regent's Inlet.-Endeavours to proceed in the Spring.-The Fury crushed by the Ice, and abandoned.-Attempt of Parry to reach the North Pole over the Ice.-Sails to Spitzbergen.-Journey of Two Months on the Ice. Is drifted southwards. Failure of the Attempt.

Ir the voyage of captain Parry did not lead to the discovery of the north-west passage, it was at least productive of information of an encouraging description. There could be no doubt that he had discovered straits communicating with the Polar Sea, and through which his progress was barred by accumulations of ice, which, in all probability, occasionally break up, and allow a free passage. The opinion of the old navigators, that the northern portion of America is broken land, or rather a cluster of large islands, was rendered still more probable; and as but little was as yet known of the northern shores of Hudson's Bay, it was hoped that some inlet might be there found com

municating with the Northern Sea, and in which, from its more southerly situation, navigation might be continued for a longer portion of the year.

The Hecla had answered so well on her former voyage, that the Fury, a similar ship, was prepared to attend her on the second one. Improvements were made in the internal fittings of the vessels. Charred cork was placed between the sides of the ships and the internal lining of plank, as a security against the cold; and a simple but well contrived apparatus for distributing heated air was fixed in each ship. Captain Parry was directed by his instructions to commence his examination of the coast after he had reached some point which he was sure was on the continent of America; and thence proceeding to the north, to keep along the coast, minutely exploring every inlet or opening that occurred, in order to ascertain the north-east point of that continent round which he hoped he might reach the open sea, and thus effect his passage round Icy Cape, and through Behring's Straits into the Pacific.

The ships left the Nore on the 8th of May, 1821; and encountered the first iceberg at the entrance of Davis's Strait on the 14th of June. In Hudson's Strait the difficulty of navigating among the ice was found to be much greater than in that of Davis's or Baffin's Bay. The relations of old navigators, respecting the large stones, the quantities of sand, shells, and weeds, seen here deposited on the floating fields of ice, were found to be correct. "The quantity in which these substances," says captain Parry, "here occurred, was really surprising, and puzzled us extremely to account for the manner in which they found their way upon the floes. Masses of rock, not less than a hundred pounds in weight, are sometimes observed in the middle of a floe, measuring half a mile or more each way, and of which the whole surface is more or less covered with smaller stones, sand, and shells."

From the numerous impediments that occurred in the navigation of Hudson's Strait, it was the 2d of August before the expedition reached the mouth of the channel formed between Southampton Island and the coast towards the north. Captain Parry, who believed this to be the same channel or strait which captain Middleton, in 1742, had named the Frozen Strait, determined, notwithstanding its inauspicious name, to endeavour to force a passage through it. If he could succeed in the attempt, it would save him a circuitous voyage of 150 leagues. After struggling onward for some days, the ships arrived at an inland basin of water, ten miles in width and about five in breadth, having regular soundings and good anchorage in every part, and perfectly free from ice.

To this magnificent bay, which captain Parry considers to be