ry
manner, the belief of our being in a broad channel communicating with a
western sea. As the conclusions we immediately drew from this
circumstance may not be so obvious to others, I shall here briefly
explain that, from the manner in which the hummocky floes are formed, it
is next to impossible that any of these of considerable extent can ever
be produced in a mere inlet having a narrow communication with the sea.
There is, in fact, no ice to which the denomination of "sea-ice" may be
more strictly and exclusively applied than this; and we therefore felt
confident that the immense floes which now opposed our progress must
have come from the sea on one side or the other; while the current,
which we had observed to run in an easterly direction in the narrows, of
this strait, precluded the possibility of such ice having found its way
in from that quarter. The only remaining conclusion was, that it must
have been set into the strait from the westward towards the close of a
summer, and cemented in its present situation by the frost of the
succeeding winter.

A great deal of snow having fallen in the last two days, scarcely a dark
patch was now to be seen on any part of the land, so that the prospect
at daylight on the 30th was as comfortless as can well be imagined for
the parties who were just about to find their way among the rocks and
precipices. Soon after four A.M., however, when we had ascertained that
the drift-ice was no longer lying in their way, they were all
despatched in their different directions. For each of the land-parties a
depot of several days' provision and fuel was, in case of accidents,
established on the beach; and Lieutenant Palmer took in his boat a
supply for nine days.

On the 31st the wind blew fresh and cold from the northwest, which
caused a quantity of ice to separate from the fixed floe in small pieces
during the day, and drift past the ships. Early in the morning, a
she-bear and her two cubs were observed floating down on one of these
masses, and, coming close to the Hecla, were all killed. The female
proved remarkably small, two or three men being able to lift her into a
boat.

At half past nine on the morning of the 1st of September, one of our
parties was descried at the appointed rendezvous on shore, which, on our
sending a boat to bring them on board, proved to be Captain Lyon and his
people. From their early arrival we were in hopes that some decisive
information had at length be