110 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
length, and the finest moss in abundance. At this 
time, however, the soil was so much dried up, that 
the chief part of the vegetation was in a state of 
decay. 
My description of this land to the eastward, ren- 
ders it unnecessary to repeat my observations, as the 
formation of it where we landed to-day, agrees 
exactly with that described yesterday. Of its mi- 
nerals, little, or, I may say, nothing, can be said, for 
rocks, or even loose stones, of any size, were rarely 
tobeseen. On the tops of the hills and places where 
nothing grew, the surface was covered with small 
pieces of a greenish friable stone, that crumbled 
easily by the pressure of the hand. A few small 
pieces of quartz, clay, slate, and limestone, were also 
occasionally met with; but, as I have already men- 
tioned, not in sufficient abundance to be considered 
as forming a constituent part of the country. 
Several sets of azimuths were taken on shore, but 
we found that their results viewed separately differed 
in the same manner as those taken at the®*last 
place where we landed; collectively, their mean re- 
sult gave the variation 149° easterly. The dip, 
or vertical inclination of the magnetic needle, was 
found to be greater at this place, than at any 
other, where it had been tried before, being 88° 45’. 
The latitude of the place where these observations 
were made, was 74° 58’ N. and longitude by chro- 
nometer 107° W. We had much pleasure to-day 
again, in finding that the flood-tide comes from the 
westward ; it was ebbing when we landed, and it was 
observed that during the five hours we were on shore, 
it only fell about four feet, so that we may conclude 
