244 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. VIII. 



luxuriant rein-deer moss. The party succeeded in 

 killing three rein-deer out of a small herd. Higher 

 up the strait on the side of a hill, at three or four 

 hundred feet above the level of the sea, Lieutenant 

 Ross found several pieces of coal, which burned 

 with a clear bright flame ; he saw two hares, and 

 killed one of them, also a fox, a pair of ravens, some 

 wingless ducks, and several snow-buntings. Parry 

 says they observed a number of whales in every 

 part of Lancaster Sound. They observed also a 

 great many narwhals and a few walruses in Bar- 

 row's Strait, and thinks they might have seen many 

 more of both, but for the continual presence of the 

 young ice. 



This being the fourth winter which Parry was 

 doomed to pass in the frozen regions of the North, 

 he knows not, he says, how he can do better than 

 pursue a method similar to that heretofore prac- 

 tised, by confining himself rather to the pointing 

 out of any difference observed now and formerly, 

 than by entering on a fresh description of the actual 

 phenomena. 



" To those who read, as well as to those who describe, 

 the account of a winter passed in these regions can no 

 longer be expected to afford the interest of novelty it once 

 possessed ; more especially in a station already delineated 

 with tolerable geographical precision on our maps, and thus, 

 as it were, brought near to our firesides at home. Inde- 

 pendently, indeed, of this circumstance, it is hard to con- 

 ceive any one thing more like another than two winters 



