Chap. VIII. PARRY'S THIRD VOYAGE, 255 



coast, and the two shores were nearly parallel to 



each other : and there the crossing might not have 



been difficult ; besides the certainty of going down 



an eastern coast, in comparison of taking a western 



one, according to Captain Parry's own showing, 



makes it the more remarkable he did not choose the 



former. It might also have been supposed that a 



desire to extend the knowledge of the eastern coast 



might have been a strong inducement, even if only 



to examine the opening of the Fury and Hecla Strait 



into the Regent's Inlet, which Mr. Reid's report 



leaves in rather an unsatisfactory state, and also to 



have looked into the Gulf of Akkolee, which is 



described by the Esquimaux lady. 



Parry, however, had doubtless good reasons for 



his choice, one of which was the apparent tendency 



to the westward of the shore of North Somerset. 



That he had well weighed the case, appears by his 



own showing : — 



" I shall first mention (he says) a circumstance which has 

 particularly forced itself upon my notice in the course of 

 our various attempts to penetrate through the ice in these 

 regions, which is, that the eastern coast of any portion of 

 land, or, what is the same thing, the western sides of seas or 

 inlets, having a tendency at all approaching to north and 

 south, are, at a given season of the year, generally more 

 encumbered with ice than the shores with an opposite aspect. 

 The four following instances (he continues) may be adduced 

 in illustration of this fact, and cannot but appear somewhat 

 striking when considered in viewing a map which exhibits 

 the relative position of the shores in question."— p. 176. 



