308 DISCOVERIES OF }773^ _ 



nearly east and west. By observation at midnight 

 the latitude was 80" 37', and their longitude the 

 following day, when in sight of the Seven Islands, 



was 15° 16' 45" E. 



Some of the officers landed on a low flat island 

 in the mouth of Waygat Strait, on which they 

 found several large fir trees lying on the shore, 

 sixteen or eighteen feet above the level of the sea; 

 some of them, seventy feet in length, had been torn 

 up by the roots, others had been cut down with an 

 axe and notched for twelve-feet lengths; this 

 timber was no ways decayed, or the strokes of the 

 hatchet in the least effaced. The beach was 

 formed of old timber, sand, and whale-bones. 

 The middle of this island was covered with moss, 

 scurvy grass, sorrel, and a few ranunculuses then 

 in flower. Two rein-deer were feeding on the 

 moss, one of which they killed, and found it fat 

 and of high flavour. On the return of the 

 officers they wounded a sea-horse, which dived 

 immediately and brought up with it a number of 

 others. They all joined in an attack upon the 

 boat, wrested an oar from one of the men, and 

 were with difficulty prevented from staving or 

 oversetting the boat. 



On the 30th July the weather was exceedingly 

 fine and mild and unusually clear. " The scene," 

 says Captain Phipps, " was beautiful and pictu- 

 resque ; the two ships becalmed in a large bay, 

 with three apparent openings between the islands 



