hich it is distant
three hundred and thirteen miles in a straight line; but the distance
between the nearer part of the Great Bear Lake and the Arctic Sea here,
does not much exceed one hundred and ninety miles.

[Sidenote: Tuesday, 25th.] Taking advantage of a light breeze and very
fine weather, we embarked at midnight, and crossed over to the east side
of the bay, passing through some heavy streams of ice by rather
intricate channels. At half past five in the morning of the 25th, we
landed on a point of the main shore, and Mr. Kendall took observations
for three sets of lunars. On re-embarking we proceeded a few miles
further, when a heavy gale of wind suddenly springing up, we ran for
shelter into a small creek at the extremity of a cape, which I named
after the distinguished traveller Captain G.F. Lyon, R.N. The bay which
lies betwixt it and Cape Parry, was called Darnley, in honour of the
Earl of Darnley. The distance from Clapperton Island to Cape Lyon is
fourteen miles.

The country in the neighbourhood of Cape Lyon presents a surface varied
by gently swelling eminences, covered with a grassy sward, and
intersected by several narrow ridges of naked trap rocks, rising about
one hundred and fifty feet above the general level. The trap ridges,
when they reach the coast, form high cliffs, and the clay-slate and
limestone lie in nearly horizontal strata beneath them. The view inland
was terminated by the range of hills which we had seen at the bottom of
Darnley Bay, to which the name of Melville Range was now given, in
honour of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Melville.

From the top of the highest trap-hill, near the extremity of the cape,
we saw some heavy ice to seaward, but with enough of open water for the
passage of a ship; and, occasionally, during our stay, there was an
appearance of land to the north-westward, occupying two points of the
compass; but we were uncertain whether it might not be a fog-bank
hanging over a field of ice. If it was land, it could not be less than
twenty-five or thirty miles distant, and must, from the portion of the
horizon it occupied, be a large island. Upon the summit of the hill we
erected a pile of stones, and deposited another letter for Captain
Parry, containing a short account of our proceedings.

A gale of wind detained us two days at Cape Lyon, during which Ooligbuck
supplied us with rein-deer meat, and Mr. Kendall obtained several sets
of lunars. The latitude of