116 OPINION ON THE OPEN WATER. [September, 



most scrutinizing search, not only for vessels, but for 

 persons or their traces ; and, however confident our opi- 

 nions may be that they could not exist for such a length- 

 ened period in this vicinity, still no excuse would be sa- 

 tisfactory, if we failed to silence the conjectures of those 

 who might even imagine that any reasonable spot, to 

 which access to them would perhaps be impossible, had 

 not been rigorously examined. That duty yet remains 

 to be executed, God willing ; and in the prosecution of 

 that duty, it may yet be our lot to determine if Sir John 

 left any record in the so-called " Jones Sound." It is 

 far from impossible that his vessels may have entered 

 this region, and have drifted even thus far. If they 

 reached this open water by Jones or Smith Channels, 

 my impression is that they would endeavour to gain the 

 northern water, and may be anywhere within the pa- 

 rallel of 80, but I doubt it exceedingly. The latitude 

 of this position was determined to be in 77 29' N., 

 longitude 95 W., variation 141 18' W. It received the 

 name of Pell Point. 



In this region, where the tides or currents are scarcely 

 obstructed by islands, and run with some velocity, rip- 

 ping up the floe like paper, much open water must of 

 necessity prevail, and possibly still more so to the north- 

 ward. This may oifer the means of drift to and fro, 

 but not the means of navigation ; nor do these islands 

 afford either sustenance, chance of harbour, or refuge. 

 That they are not washed by any free currents from 

 Asia or America, the total absence of even a particle of 

 drift would seem to infer. The young ice threatened to 

 annoy us ; and a stretch of seventeen miles, under such 



