146 PARRY'S SECOND VOYAGE. 



advance a single yard ; nor had the crews any means 

 of exerting their activity except in land journeys. 



Captain Lyon undertook an expedition southward, to 

 ascertain if any inlet or passage from sea to sea in this 

 direction had escaped notice. The country, however, 

 was so filled with rugged and rocky hills, some a thou- 

 sand feet high, and with chains of lakes in which much 

 ice was floating, that he could not proceed above seven 

 miles. Though it was the beginning of September, the 

 season was only that of early spring ; and the buds of 

 the poppy and saxifrage were just unfolding, to be pre- 

 maturely nipped by the fast-approaching winter. 



More satisfactory information was derived from 

 another excursion made by Messrs. Reid and Bushman, 

 who penetrated sixty miles westward along the southern 

 coast of Cockburn Island, till they reached a pinnacle, 

 whence they saw, beyond all doubt, the Polar Ocean 

 spreading its vast expanse before them ; but tremendous 

 barriers of ice filled the strait, and precluded all ap- 

 proach towards that great and desired object. 



It was now the middle of September, and the usual 

 symptoms of deer trooping in herds southward, floating 

 pieces of ice consolidated into masses, and the thin 

 pancake crust forming on the surface of the waters, 

 reminded the mariners not only that they could hope 

 for no further removal of the obstacles which arrested 

 their progress, but that they must lose no time in pro- 

 viding winter quarters. The middle of the strait, at the 

 spot where they had been first stopped, occurred as the 

 station whence they would be most likely to push 

 future discovery ; but prudence suggested a doubt, 

 whether the ships, enclosed in this icy prison, with 

 such strong barriers on each side, might ever be able to 

 effect their extrication. The chance of being shut up 

 here for eleven months, amid the privations of an Arctic 



