118 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
I am in hopes we shall be able, before long, to give , . 
a better account of some of them, than the bare state- 
ment of a distant sight. 
Wednesday, 8th. — The ice still forms a compact 
body to the westward, so that it would be vain to 
attempt to force through it. We found that, during the 
flood-tide, it drifts, as I mentioned yesterday, to the 
eastward: we, therefore, in the afternoon, cast off 
from the floe to which we had been fast, and towed 
the ships to a hummock which was aground in 
twelve fathoms’ water, at about a quarter of a mile 
from the shore, where they were secured, to prevent 
their being carried to the eastward along with the 
drifting ice. A party of the officers who went on 
shore to-day killed several grous, and a white hare 
(Lepus Variabilis, Lin.) : a fox, some field-mice, se- 
veral snow-buntings, were seen, and a large white 
bird, supposed to be an owl, probably the snowy 
owl of Pennant and Latham, (Strix Nyctea, Lin.) 
Four musk-oxen were also seen to-day before the 
boats landed, but those who went on shore had not the 
good fortune to fall in with, or even to see them after 
they landed. Several pieces of coal were picked up 
again to-day, and it was found that the same soil, 
mineral, and vegetable productions, prevail here as at 
the last place where we landed. 
Friday, 10th. — The wind being these two days 
past chiefly from the southward and westward, has 
consequently kept the ice closely packed in with the 
land, so that we are still obliged to remain in the 
same place at which we came to on Wednesday 
Jast. As nothing particular was doing during this 
period, parties have been away for most part of the 
