284 SIR J. C. ROSS'S EXPEDITION. 



miles distant. This extreme point of the journey is the 

 western extremity of a small high peninsula, situated in 

 latitude 72 38' north, and longitude 95 40' west. The 

 atmosphere at the time was peculiarly clear, and would 

 have carried the eye to land of any great elevation at 

 the distance of one hundred miles. But the most dis- 

 tant visible cape in the direction toward Boothia and 

 Victoria Land was not further off than fifty miles, and 

 lay nearly due south. Several small bays and inlets 

 intervened, and though, perhaps, not forming a contin- 

 uous sweep of the sea, they prove Prince Regent's Inlet 

 at Cresswell and Brentford Bays to be separated from 

 the western ocean by a very narrow isthmus a dis- 

 tinct natural boundary between North Somerset and 

 Boothia. 



The party resting at the encampment were- not idle. 

 Lieut. McClintock, who headed them, took some mag- 

 netic observations, which had great value, on account 

 of the near vicinity of the place to the magnetic pole. 

 Two of the men pierced the ice, and found it to be 

 eight feet thick, and set in a stick for ascertaining the 

 state of the tides ; and all the others who could work 

 erected a large cairn, into which was put a copper 

 cylinder, containing all requisite information for the 

 guidance of any of Sir John Franklin's company who 

 might journey along that coast. The time for expecting 

 those missing ones there that season, on the supposition 

 of their having abandoned their ships in the vicinity of 

 Melville Island, had almost or altogether passed. The 

 thaw had commenced, the suitable conditions for travel- 

 ling were over, and the present explorers had, at least, 

 the satisfaction of knowing that no wanderers from the 

 Erebus and the Terror then lay unheeded or perishing 

 on the coast of North Somerset. . 



The explorers began their return journey on the 6th 



