246 THE ROSS AND PARRY POLAR VOYAGES 



nation since then often used. He was the first to discover cliffs 

 covered with seeming red snow ; this is now known to be due to the 

 growth in the snow of a minute red lichen. At the farthest point 

 which he reached, Ross was too far south to discern more than 

 the outline of the land near Smith Sound; but he named the bold 

 headlands which guard the entrance to this famous channel after 

 his two ships, Cape Isabella and Cape Alexander. 



Descending the west side of the bay, he found the waters clear 

 of ice, and extremely deep. The land was high, and the range of 

 mountains, in general, free from snow. A noble inlet, fifty miles 

 wide, with cliffs on both sides, now offered itself to view, and the 

 ships entered it on the 2Qth of August. But they had scarcely 

 accomplished thirty miles when Ross, to the surprise and vexation 

 of his officers, declared that he saw land stretching across the inlet 

 at a distance of eight leagues, and ordered the ships to tack about 

 and return. To this imaginary land he gave the name of Croker 

 Mountains. Parry, on the other hand, was of opinion that this 

 great inlet, now recognized as the Lancaster Sound of Baffin, was, 

 no land-locked bay, but a strait opening out to the westward; and 

 on the return of the two ships to England he openly declared this 

 opinion. The English public supported the energetic Parry; and, 

 after a vigorous wordy warfare, the government resolved to place 

 him in charge of the "Hecla" bomb-ship and the "Griper" gun- 

 brig, with which he sailed for the north on the 5th of May, 1819. 



On the 1 5th of June Parry came in sight of Cape Farewell, 

 and sailed on up Davis Strait and Baffin Bay as far as 73 degrees 

 north latitude, where he found himself hemmed in by masses of ice. 

 On the 25th, however, a way opened up, and Parry pushed forward, 

 boldly and energetically, until he reached Lancaster Sound. Here 

 he was on the ground made familiar by the expedition of the pre- 

 ceding year, and was soon to determine whether Ross' supposed 

 mountains had any real existence. "It is more easy to imagine 

 than describe," says Parry, "the almost breathless anxiety which 



