202 BOOTHIA 



distinguish in any other manner. . . . We fixed the 

 British flag on the spot and took possession of the 

 North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in 

 the name of Great Britain and King William the 

 Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building, 

 in the fragments of limestone that covered the beach ; 

 and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude, 

 under which we buried a canister containing a record 

 of the interesting fact ; only regretting that we had not 

 the means of constructing a pyramid of more import- 

 ance and of strength sufficient to withstand the assaults 

 of time and of the Eskimos. Had it been a pyramid 

 as large as that of Cheops, I am not quite sure that it 

 would have done more than satisfy our ambition, under 

 the feelings of that exciting day. The latitude of this 

 spot is 70 5' 17", and its longitude 96 46' 45" west." 



The Victory in the short summer of 1 830 sailed a few 

 miles further south and spent the winter in Victoria 

 Harbour, to be there abandoned in May, 1832. Ross 

 in his boats made for Fury Beach, where, at Somerset 

 House, as he called it, he passed the following winter. 

 On the 26th of August, 1833, when in his boats off the 

 eastern mouth of Lancaster Sound, he was picked up 

 by the Isabella, his old ship, and in her he reached the 

 Humber in October of that year after four successive 

 winters in the ice, having been enabled to make so long 

 a stay by his fortunate find of the stores left by Parry. 



In 1824 Captain Lyon was sent out in the Griper to 

 winter at Repulse Bay, and thence crossing the isthmus 

 described by the Eskimos continue along to Franklin's 

 Point Turnagain ; but the Griper was nearly wrecked 

 in Rowe's Welcome and did not reach Wager River. 



