﻿14 fkanklin's expedition. 



directly as he could for Beering's Straits. But even 

 supposing that the state of the ice permitted him to 

 take the desired route, and to turn to the south- 

 westward by the first opening beyond the 98tli 

 meridian, we are ignorant of the exact position of 

 that opening, the tract between Cape Walker and 

 Banks's Land being totally unknown. That a 

 passage to the southward does exist in that space, 

 and terminates between Victoria and Wollaston 

 Lands in Coronation Gulf, is inferred from the 

 observed setting of the flood tide. There is, it is 

 true, an uncertainty in our endeavours to determine 

 the directions of the tides in these narrow seas, where 

 the currents are influenced by prevailing winds ; 

 but Mr. Thomas Simpson, who was an acute ob- 

 server, remarked that the flood tide brought much 

 ice into Coronation Gulf round the west end of 

 Victoria Land, and facts collected on three visits 

 which I have made to that gulf lead me to concur 

 with him. Entirely in accordance with this opinion 

 is the fact noted by Sir Edward Parry, that the 

 flood tide came from the north between Cornwallis 

 and the neighbouring islands, and that the ice was 

 continually setting round the west end of Melville 

 Island and passing onwards to the south-east. 



These observations, while they point to an 

 opening to the eastward of Banks's Land, may be 

 adduced as an argument against the existence of a 



