72 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. July 



near Black Cape ; three young geese newly hatched 

 were seen near the nests. 



6 After being detained by a fog for a few hours, 

 Giffard and I ascended Cape Union, and from the 

 summit, 1,600 feet above the sea, obtained a mag- 

 nificent and extended view. The atmosphere being 

 unusually clear — the precursor of a coming storm — 

 Cape Cracroft and Cape Bryant, the two cliffy portals of 

 Kennedy Channel, sixty and seventy-five miles distant, 

 were distinctly visible. The ice in Hall's Basin and 

 Eobeson Channel had evidently only just commenced 

 to break up, for in mid-channel it still remained 

 compact ; but on either side, between the pack and 

 the land, was a border of broken-up floes about two 

 miles in breadth. Water-pools were to be seen off 

 Cape Brevoort, Cape Lupton, and all the prominent 

 points towards the south, and a strong water-sky over 

 Kennedy Channel. 



' There were also a few disconnected water-pools 

 near the land in the neighbourhood of Cape Stanton 

 and in the northern pack ; these would denote that the 

 disruption in the ice had come both from the north- 

 east and the southward at about the same time. 



' A decided ice-cap was observed above the land 

 at the bottom of Newman Bay ; also one inshore of 

 Cape Britannia, far away towards the north-east. 



' In the evening the wind freshened from the west- 

 ward and forced the ice away from the west coast, 

 leaving a water-channel, about half a mile in breadth, 

 extending from Cape Eawson southward to an un- 

 known distance. In the neighbourhood of the ship 



