by the hand of Nature, even where least to be expected,
little doubt can be entertained, as it is well known to be a
never-failing specific for scorbutic affections, to which all
persons deprived of it for a length of time are probably more or
less predisposed.

By the 20th of June, the land in the immediate neighbourhood of
the ships, and especially in low and sheltered situations, was
much covered with the handsome purple flower of the _saxifraga
oppositifolia_, which was at this time in great perfection, and
gave something like cheerfulness and animation to a scene hitherto
indescribably dreary in its appearance.

The suddenness with which the changes take place during the short
season which may be called summer in this climate, must appear
very striking when it is remembered that, for a part of the first
week in June, we were under the necessity of thawing artificially
the snow which we made use of for water during the early part of
our journey to the northward; that, during the second week, the
ground was in most parts so wet and swampy that we could with
difficulty travel; and that, had we not returned before the end of
the third week, we should probably have been prevented doing so
for some time, by the impossibility of crossing the ravines
without great danger of being carried away by the torrents, an
accident that happened to our hunting parties on one or two
occasions in endeavouring to return with their game to the ships.

On the 22d, at four P.M., a thermometer, in the shade on board the
Hecla, stood at 51 deg., being the highest temperature we had yet
registered this season.

On the 24th we had frequent showers of snow, which occur in this
climate more or less at all times of the year; at this season,
however, when the earth is warm, it seldom or never lies on the
ground for a whole day together.

Lieutenant Beechey, on his return from a hunting excursion at
midnight on the 26th, reported that the ice along shore in that
direction appeared in a more forward state of dissolution than
near Winter Harbour, there being almost water enough in some
places to allow a boat to pass, with several large cracks in the
ice extending from the land some distance to seaward. The deep had
now become much more wild near the tents, and it was therefore
necessary to shift the ground a little. Lieutenant Beechey
succeeded in killing one of these animals, by lying down quietly,
and imitating the voice of a fawn, when the