10 INSTRUCTIONS. 



You will also endeavour to ascertain the set 

 and velocity of any currents which you may 

 observe, and if possible the depth of the sea 

 and the nature of the bottom, and you are to 

 take up several bottles of sea water from the 

 surface, and from different depths, which you 

 will carefully cork up and label. 



On leaving the Pole you will endeavour to 

 shape a course direct for Behring's Straits; but 

 should you find that course so much obstructed, 

 either by land or ice, as to prevent your pro- 

 gress, you are to return to the south-westward 

 and endeavour to pass between Greenland and 

 the east coast of America, into the sea called 

 Baffin's Bay, for the northern limits of which, 

 as it appears in the charts, there is little or 

 no authority, and thence by Davis' Strait to 

 England. 



Should you find it impossible to approach 

 the Pole, but that you should be able to pro- 

 ceed in a direction affording any prospect of 

 reaching Behring's Strait, you are to adopt it, 

 recollecting that, although it is highly desirable, 

 with a view to the interests of science, and the 

 extension of natural knowledge, that you should 

 reach the Pole, yet that the passage between 

 the Atlantic and Pacific is the main object of 

 your mission ; and with this view, if you should 



