ome ice aground, we hauled to.

"The next day, being fine weather, we proceeded farther up, and
seeing no ice or fish (_whales_), a boat was sent on shore. She,
returning, reported not having seen any thing but _very high land_
and _deep water close to_ rocks on the south shore.

"We tacked ship, and stood to the N.E. compass (_N.W. true_); saw
some ice aground on a sand-bank, with only six feet water on it at
low water, but standing on the N.E. compass (_N.W. true_), found
deep water from five to eight miles across from the sand to the
north shore. When past the sand, open water as far as we could see
from the masthead, and extending from about _N.E. to N.N.W.
compass_ (N.W. to W.S.W. true). We then returned, being fine and
clear, and could not see what we were in search of (whales).

"Leaving the north land, a long, low point, running up to a
_table-top mountain, we came across to the south side, which was
bold land right out of the sound_.

"We saw the _Pinnacle Rocks at the end of that sound_ (_Princess
Charlotte's Monument_); and _this and the low land between that
sound_ and _Lancaster Sound_, as we were running to the S.E., makes
me confident is the same place which we were up in the 'Pioneer.'

"The distance we ran up the sound in the 'Prince of Wales,' I
think, to the best of my judgment, was about a hundred and fifty or
sixty miles, &c.

"(Signed) ROBERT MOORE,

"Ice quarter-master, H.M.S. 'Pioneer.'

"To Lieut. Sherard Osborn."

The italics in the above letter serve to show how correctly these
observations of my quarter-master agreed with the sound we were up; and
taking this, together with the description of the land seen by Captain
Stewart and Dr. Sutherland, during their late journey up the eastern
side of Wellington Channel, I believe that a very narrow intervening
belt of low land divides Jones's Sound from Baring Bay, in Wellington
Channel, and that, turning to the northward, this sound eventually
opens into the same great Polar Sea which washes the northern shores of
the Parry group.

[Headnote: _ERECTION OF A CAIRN._]

Unable to advance, we returned, upon our wake, to the conical island on
the north side of the sound; and a boat, with two officers in it, was
sent to erect a cairn. They returned next morning, having found, what
interested me very much, numerous Esquimaux traces, though of ve