36 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. II. 



sounds within it, and is a fit place for the killing 

 of whales." 



Two hours after passing Wolstenholme, they 

 came opposite Whale Sound, and passed it at a 

 greater distance than the former ; but they could 

 not approach it in a direct line on account of the 

 ice. The same evening it is stated that, near 

 Care}r's Islands, " the sea was clearer of floes and 

 loose ice than we had ever seen it." They had 

 advanced about midnight of the 19th to the northern 

 corner of Baffin's Bay, where Sir Thomas Smith's 

 Sound opens out, and which Ross says " was dis- 

 tinctly seen," and he named the two capes forming 

 its entrance after the two ships, Isabella and Alex- 

 ander. " I considered," says Ross, " the bottom of 

 this sound to be about eighteen leagues distant, but 

 its entrance was completely blocked up by ice." 

 He forgets that, by his own showing, he was never 

 nearer than sixty English miles from the entrance 

 of it. An able and honest testimony, on this point, is 

 contained in a small tract published by Mr. Fisher, 

 the assistant-surgeon of the Alexander, an intelli- 

 gent and active officer, who says that, being much 

 interested in ascertaining whether Greenland and 

 the west land joined, he kept the deck all day ; and 

 though the weather was remarkably clear and fine 

 till midnight, he could not see any such junction. 

 " It is probable," he adds, " that the chasm or open 

 space to the northward, where not any land could 



