328 SLEDGING PARTIES 



and baffled by it for a series of days, and compelled to 

 return ; and on the 6th of May, after special prayer to 

 God for support, they again started. Some coursed so 

 far and so curvingly as to make a near approach to the 

 most northerly of Captain Austin's parties ; and all 

 figured largely and respectably in the squadron's aggre- 

 gate of exploits. But their chief feat the feat, at least, 

 of those on the channel and west of it was a discovery 

 which put a stop to their progress toward the north, 

 and gave an entirely new complexion to the search in 

 which they were engaged, the discovery of a wide 

 westward strait of open water, lying along the further 

 side of the lands which flank Barrow's Strait and Parry's 

 Strait. 



Captain Penny personally shared in this discovery, 

 and made great exertions to follow it up. The explor- 

 ers, proceeding up Wellington Channel, arrived in 

 latitude 75 22' at Cape Duhorn, and thence ten miles 

 north-westward to Point Decision. Penny, on the 15th 

 of May, went from this point, over the ice, north-west 

 by north, to an island which he called Bailie Hamil- 

 ton Island. The ice was in a very decayed state ; and 

 on the 17th, after travelling round the island, first in a 

 north-easterly and next in a north-north-westerly direc- 

 tion, he arrived at the open strait, saw in it twenty-five 

 miles of clear water, and discovered a headland fifteen 

 miles distant, west by north, over-canopied by a dark 

 sky, which indicated an expanse of open water on the 

 further side. This point was found to be in latitude 76 2' 

 and west longitude 95 55' ; and the strait received the 

 name of Victoria Channel. 



Penny hastened back to the ships for a boat, and used 

 every exertion to have one promptly mounted on sledgea 

 and sent forward ; but he did not get it up to the strait 

 without vast effort, and some tantalizing delays. But 



