THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 326 



in his manuscript diary, I now know, refers to them as "three 

 reefs," and three they were and there they were. But about "Ire- 

 land's Eye" I could not be so certain, for there were several more 

 "reefs" of the same sort. Later, however, we identified tentatively 

 as Ireland's Eye an island lying a good deal farther from Mc- 

 Clintock's three reefs than the chart indicated and more to the 

 east. At least it appears a real island from a distance; the ones 

 lying more nearly where the chart puts Ireland's Eye are mere 

 ridges of gravel scraped up from the shallow sea bottom by the 

 plowing of wind-driven ice. 



So far as McClintock's records are concerned, Ireland's Eye is 

 mysterious. His diary as printed in the Parliamentary Blue 

 Books has no hint of such a place. His manuscript diary contains 

 certain notes that have been omitted from the published version or 

 else altered. But I have had opportunity to examine this manu- 

 script carefully and have found no reference to Ireland's Eye 

 nor even compass bearings leading in that direction. At one time 

 we did think we had found something referring to it, but this was 

 later clearly identified as the little unnamed island which appears 

 on the Admiralty chart as about twenty miles straight south of 

 Ireland's Eye. In the manuscript map the line of the heavy pack 

 ice is indicated as curving north of the three reefs, which appear 

 exactly as they do on the Admiralty chart. The published chart 

 does not reproduce this line of heavy ice, but if it were transferred 

 there it would curve around north of Ireland's Eye. From this one 

 might conclude that Ireland's Eye is one of the reefs noted by us in 

 about this position. 



Yet Ireland's Eye on the Admiralty chart is evidently intended 

 to be something more than a reef, for the south side of it is marked 

 plainly while the north side is dotted in, indicating that the extent 

 of the land was unknown. It is this feature which makes us 

 identify it, provisionally, not with one of the reefs but with an 

 island we saw lying considerably to the east. 



It occurred to me that Ireland's Eye might have been reported 

 by some of the men whom McClintock detached to send towards 

 Melville Island at the time when he with two companions proceeded 

 westward from Cape McClintock. We were able to find in the 

 diary a summary of the report of these men when he overtook 

 them, but no mention of their having seen any land previously 

 not noted by McClintock. I have appealed in this connection 

 to the Royal Geographical Society, but a search through all records 

 available to them leads only to the same results: Ireland's Eye 



