170 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. September 



navigable water extending halfway across Princess 

 Marie Bay. 



This position received its name from being the 

 most northern locality where walrus were fallen in 

 with. 



As soon as the ships were secured, Captain Stephen- 

 son and I, accompanied by Commander Markham, 

 ascended Norman Lockyer Island to inspect the ice. 



The weather was remarkably clear, and besides 

 finding navigable water extending four or five miles 

 from the island, we had the cheering prospect of 

 seeing a large expanse of water about fifteen miles 

 distant towards the south-east in about the same 

 position as where we met with the southern edge of the 

 pack on our way north the previous year, and having 

 every appearance of being connected with the water 

 at the entrance of Smith Sound. The prospect was so 

 favourable that I could not hesitate about advancing. 

 Nevertheless, at so late a period of the season, when 

 the young ice was steadily increasing in thickness day 

 and night, we knew that if deceived in the weather, 

 or if one false step were made, we should be beset in 

 the drifting pack during the coming winter, without 

 sufficient coal for warming the ships and none for 

 steaming purposes the following year. 



After leaving a notice of our movements on the 

 summit of the island, we bade good-bye to the Grinnell 

 shores, and with the exception of one nip, about two 

 hundred yards in length, where two floes had become 

 cemented together by the frost, and which occupied 

 the whole of both crews, assisted by the ' Discovery ' 

 ramming, an hour before it was cleared, we advanced 



