MOVEMENTS OF THE SHIPS. 313 



of life could be seen ; not the faintest answering sound 

 was heard. The supposed shot had been merely the 

 falling of a piece of rock, or the collision of some heavy 

 masses of ice. 



Next morning the vessel was off Fury Beach, and in 

 a thick fog ; and when the fog cleared away, she proved 

 to be in a bight of the ice, within a few yards of a con- 

 tinuous, heavy, hummocky expanse, which contained 

 not, as far as it could be seen from the crow's nest, one 

 pool or crack, or the slightest promise of an opening. 

 The officers examined this long and anxiously, and were 

 forced to conclude that any attempt to penetrate it that 

 season would be impracticable. They gloomily but 

 irresistibly felt the specific object of their voyage, the 

 examination of the shores of Boothia, to be defeated ; 

 and saw at once that they must turn about and lose 

 little time in returning to Britain. But they resolved 

 first to look at some of the most accessible shores and 

 headlands about the throat of Barrow's Strait, arid a 

 brief way up Wellington Channel. 



During twenty-four hours, Mr. Snow, with a small 

 boat party, made a romantic land search of the coast 

 around Batty Bay, and on to Port Leopold ; and he found 

 the latter place far more blocked up than on the 21st, 

 and did not get away from it without enormous labor 

 and difficulty. When he again reached his vessel they 

 had to stand well away to avoid collision with a heavy 

 stream of ice which filled a large portion of the adjacent 

 sounds. When they got a little way into Barrow's 

 Strait, they saw coming right towards them a schooner, 

 which they first supposed to be the Felix, but afterwards 

 found to be the American brig Advance. On the 

 morning of the 24: th, they were standing across to Cape 

 Hurd, under a clear sky and with a moderate breeze, 

 while a heavy pack was visible from the crow's nest, 



