﻿302 THE DISCOVERY SHIPS. August, 



bight of Coronation Gulf; but Mr. Rae's expe- 

 rience in the summer of 1849 shows that in un- 

 favourable seasons, the boat navigation is closed 

 for the entire summer, and we learned from a 

 party of Eskimos whom we met in Back's Inlet, as 

 I shall have occasion to mention hereafter, that the 

 pressure of the ice on the coast this summer was 

 relieved only for a very short time. 



The state of the straits produced the melancholy 

 conviction, that a party, even though provided with 

 boats, might be detained on Wollaston Land, and 

 unable to cross to the main ; but yet at that time 

 my apprehensions for the safety of the missing 

 ships were less excited than they have been since. 

 For then their absence had not been extended much 

 beyond the time that their provisions were calcu- 

 lated to last ; and, being ignorant of Sir James C. 

 Ross having been arrested in Barrow's Straits, I 

 hoped that the accumulation of ice which annoyed 

 us might be the result of a clearance of the north- 

 ern channels, and that the two ship expeditions 

 might have happily met at the very time that we 

 were no longer able to keep the sea. It is now 

 known that the season was equally unfavourable 

 throughout the arctic seas north of America. 



The idea of a cycle of good and bad seasons has 

 often been mooted by meteorologists, and has fre- 

 quently recurred to my thoughts when endeavour- 



