356 Discoveries in the Polar Regions. 



the most southern point of Greenland. They then made a 

 fruitless attempt to gain the western coast of Davis' Straits, 

 but were prevented by the ice, and were obliged to proceed 

 midway between the two coasts ; having thus ascended to 74° 

 north, the latitude of Lancaster Sound, to which their attention 

 had been directed in the first instance, and finding the ice still 

 between them and the western coast, they entered the ice, and, 

 after eight days of extraordinary effort, they succeeded in 

 getting into the open water to the west. Having landed at 

 Possession Bay, the place where the former expedition had 

 touched after leaving Lancaster Sound, they entered the Strait 

 to which that name has hitherto been attached on the 1st of 

 August. This inlet was now ascertained to lead direct into 

 the long-sought for Polar Sea ; it extends about one hundred 

 and fifty miles in a direction due east and west, the shores 

 bounding it to the north and south being nearly parallel, at an 

 average distance apart of from forty to fifty miles. These 

 shores, though in several places indented so as to form 

 considerable bays, or perhaps, in some cases, entrances into 

 channels dividing the adjoining lands into islands, in no one 

 case were found to approach in such a manner as by any 

 possibility to cause them to appear to meet ; on the contrary, 

 there is no position in the whole Strait, where, to an observer 

 sailmg in a vessel into it, such a deception could have arisen. 



The supposition, therefore, of the existence of a high 

 range of land (Croker Mountains,) which was represented as 

 terminating the supposed bay, seems to have been altogether 

 unfounded, and even without a plausible pretext to justify or 

 palliate the mistake. To the now-ascertained Strait the name of 

 Barrow's Strait was given. In this the water was deep, and 

 clear from ice ; but, on entering the Polar Sea, the barrier of ice 

 preventing further progress westward, they bent their course in 

 a southerly direction, and entered a large sound or inlet of about 

 twenty-five miles in breadth, and which, upon its eastern coast, 

 was sufficiently free from ice. (See the Map, Plate III). Having 

 sailed one hundred and twenty miles down this inlet, called 

 Regent's Inlet, they were obstructed by ice, and as their object 



