LEAVE CAPE FAREWELL. 25 



and thus driven to the part where they are ge- 

 nerally seen. The other, and, in my judgment, not 

 improbable explanation, is to be found in the 

 well-known fact, that vast piles of huge drift- 

 wood, consisting of balsam, poplar, larches, firs, 

 and birch, are swept by the annual flooding of 

 the Mackenzie into the Polar Sea, and are there 

 carried out in different directions as the tide 

 current and set of the ice may determine. The 

 greater portion, we know, parts east and west 

 of the mouth of the river, and accumulating on 

 the Polar shores, furnishes to the poor Esqui- 

 maux an invaluable and inexhaustible supply of 

 material for their canoes and other rude imple- 

 ments of art. But is it impossible that another 

 portion may be driven out far to the north, and 

 there, meeting with a westerly current, be brought 

 into Davis's Straits through some yet unex- 

 plored channel ? 



On the 23d, we at length gave our willing 

 adieu to Cape Farewell, under the welcome in- 

 fluence of a breeze from the eastward ; but in the 

 night the wind shifted and blew hard, making a 

 sea, which kept the men half-leg deep on the 

 quarter-deck. From the 25th to the 28th, we 

 had a pleasant run across Davis's Straits under 

 a steady breeze from S. W. Day- light on the 

 29th exhibited to us a small iceberg, and soon 

 afterwards several larger bergs and a heavy 



