Chap. IV. PARRY'S FIRST VOYAGE. 85 



reached latitude 73°, " they witnessed for the first 

 time the curious phenomenon of the directive power 

 of the needle becoming so weak as to be completely 

 overcome by the attraction of the ship ; so that the 

 needle might now be said to point to the north pole 

 of the ship." 



It was the 19th of August before they again 

 reached the northern shore of Barrow's Strait, and 

 found the ice still remaining around Leopold's 

 Islands, yet not impassable ; but on that and the 

 following day the weather was thick, and much snow 

 had fallen. They now, on the 21st, had the satis- 

 faction of finding nothing to interrupt their pro- 

 gress to the westward. The sea was entirely free 

 from ice, and " so perfectly clear that it was al- 

 most impossible to believe it to be the same part of 

 the sea which but a day or two before had been 

 completely covered with floes to the utmost extent 

 of our view." On the evening of the 22nd, after 

 passing several bays and headlands on the northern 

 shore, they came before the mouth of a channel 

 of more than eight leagues in width, looking up 

 which on a beautiful clear evening, neither land nor 

 ice could be seen from the mast-head. " To this 

 noble channel," says Parry, " I gave the name of 

 Wellington, after his Grace the Master-General of 

 the Ordnance." 



" The arrival off this grand opening was an event for 

 which we had long been looking with much anxiety and 

 impatience ; for the continuity of land to the northward had 



