POSTSCRIPT. 423 



provisions of the crew running short, it was abandoned. 

 Mr. Goodsir found a spar of American spruce, untrimmed, 

 with its bark worn off, and broken at both ends, twelve feet 

 long, and as thick as a man's ankle, on the shore facing the 

 open water ; also many smaller pieces of the same kind of 

 drift wood, while none was picked up by Captain Stewart 

 in Wellington Sound. From this fact these officers 

 inferred, that the drift wood had come from the west- 

 ward. The currents or tides among the islands at the 

 western outlet of Wellington Strait, were at times, ac- 

 cording to Captain Penny's judgment, not less than four 

 knots ; and the general opinion of his officers was that the 

 principal set of the stream came from the westward, and 

 the prevailing winds from the north-west. 



Animal life was abundant in the open water, and on its 

 coasts. Walruses were seen repeatedly in the several 

 channels, north and south of Baillie Hamilton's Island; 

 and polar bears were numerous and bold, so as to be 

 dangerous to parties not well armed. Several of the bears 

 were killed, and one of them contained an entire seal in 

 its stomach, the practice of these voracious animals being 

 to swallow their prey without mastication when it is not 

 too large to pass their gullets. The walrus cannot exist 

 except when it has access to open water ; nor is the polar 

 bear usually found at a distance from it, except in its 

 passage from one sheet of water to another. The travellers 

 also saw polar hares, wolves, foxes, herds of rein-deer, 

 vast flocks of king and eider ducks, brent geese, and many 

 gulls and other water-fowl of less utility to man. Musk 

 oxen were seen only on Melville Island, where Lieutenant 

 M'Clintock killed four, and might have procured more had 

 he wished to do so. 



On the 5th of September, 1850, a floe of ice at least two 

 years old, and upwards of thirty miles in width, filled the 



VOL. II. F F 



