88 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. IV. 



four different places ; some of them consisted of 

 stones rudely planned in a circular form, and were 

 from seven to ten feet in diameter ; traces of reindeer 

 and musk-oxen were seen in many situations ; the 

 ravines were covered with luxuriant moss and other 

 vegetation, the character of which differed very little 

 from that at the bottom of Possession Bay. The 

 basis of the island consisted chiefly of sandstone, be- 

 sides which were some rich granite and red feld- 

 spar. The latitude of the place of observation was 

 75° 09' 23", and the longitude 103° 44' 37"; the dip 

 of the magnetic needle 88° 25' 58" ; and the variation 

 was now found to have changed from 128° 58' W. 

 in the longitude of 91° 48' (where the last obser- 

 vations on shore had been made), to 165° 50' 09" E. 

 at their present station. " So that we had," says 

 Parry, "in sailing over the space included between 

 those two meridians, crossed immediately to the 

 northward of the Magnetic Pole, and had undoubt- 

 edly passed over one of those spots upon the globe, 

 where the needle would have been found to vary 

 180°, or, in other words, where the North Pole 

 would have pointed to the South." In point of 

 fact, though from the weakness and sluggish per- 

 formance of the needles, observations that required 

 great nicety could not be depended on ; yet Parry 

 thinks that one of those spots he alludes to, would 

 at that time have been somewhere not far from the 

 meridian of 100° W. of Greenwich. The " spot 

 alluded to" was, of course, the Magnetic Pole, dis- 



