Chap. VII. CAPTAIN G. F. LYON. 219 



clothes : and our Captain says, " I blush while I 

 relate it, two of the fair sex actually disposed of 

 their nether garments — a piece of indecorum I had^ 

 never before witnessed." There was no need, how- 

 ever, of blushing, for in the same neighbourhood 

 Parry was offered the same thing ; but his blushes 

 were spared on finding that the lady wore a double 

 set. Lyon must have been present when Parry's 

 blushes were spared. 



Notwithstanding the Gripers dull sailing they 

 contrived to get her past Charles's Island, Digges's 

 Island, and Cape Wolstenholm, by the 20th of 

 August; and two days after saw the high land of 

 Southampton Island. Off Cape Pembroke their 

 compasses were found to be quite useless with the 

 ship's head to the southward, and so powerless that 

 the north point stood wherever it was placed by the 

 finger ; but with the ship's head to the northward 

 they all traversed again. This has been always a 

 constant complaint within the Arctic Circle, and 

 particularly near to and between the two northern 

 magnetic poles. It is a subject of such great im- 

 portance, and has excited so much interest, and for 

 the last five years has been so extensively inquired 

 into experimentally, that there is every reason to 

 hope the principles of terrestrial magnetism will 

 receive a satisfactory elucidation, assisted by the 

 observations conducted under the direction of 

 Captain Sir James Ross in the southern antarctic 



