SO A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
affecting it in any way that we could perceive. 
Under these circumstances, we are not without hopes 
that, by the time we have reached the place alluded 
to, some favourable change may have taken place in 
the state of the ice. Although I have thus endea- 
voured to shew, that the northern passage appears to 
lead more directly in the way in which we want to 
go, yet I am far from thinking that the inlet in 
which we are, does not also communicate with the sea 
seen by Messrs. Hearne and M‘Kenzie. Its extent, 
indeed, and the depth of water which we have found 
in it, are too considerable to lead us to suppose that 
it terminates near where we were when stopped. by 
the ice; for at that place, it must have been at least 
from forty to fifty miles broad, and the depth of the 
water, although we were only a few miles from the 
land, was from thirty to forty fathoms ; and yesterday, 
when we were more amid channel, we tried for 
soundings with a line of two hundred fathoms up and 
down, and yet we did not strike bottom. 
From these considerations then, in addition to the 
fact mentioned yesterday respecting the tide, it, I 
think, appears very obvious, that this inlet commu- 
nicates with the ocean, through another channel 
besides that through which we went. 
Monday, 9th.— We have been working to the 
northward all day, along the eastern edge of the ice, 
that is, between it and the south-east land. In this 
channel we have, during these few days past, seen such 
a number of the common, or black whales, that our 
(Greenland) masters seem to think that an establish- 
ment, or factory, situated here for the purpose of 
killing whales, would be very likely to turn out a 
lucrative speculation ; for, in addition to the oil that 
might be collected, a vast quantity of ivory might 
