310 Failure of Captain Buchan’s Branch of the Expedition. 
northernmost ship, and have made fast to the ice, on purpose to 
send away a few letters. The fish are turning so very plenty, 
that all the ships are employed, and probably will proceed no 
further north this season. This afternoon we got jammed be- 
tween two flaws, and seeing a ship taking fish at a short distance 
from us, Captain Ross sends all his dispatches with her, in case 
of not falling in with any other, or ice opening and separating 
us. You will hear from me by every oppportunity. 
“Tam, &c. JR: 
¢ P,S. While writing these last lines, the ice has closed all 
round us, and fast to the northward. You may guess how fickle 
it is. We are now about three miles off a small rocky island, in 
270 fathoms mud; the island four or five Jeagues from the main 
land, and ice connecting it. The temperature of the water to- 
day is 36 deg. higher than it has been for some weeks. We see 
land bearing N.W. by W. true.” 
Failure of Captain Bucuan’s Branch of the Expedition. 
On Oct. 15, Mr. Fisher, an officer of the Dorothea (discovery 
ship), Captain Buchan, arrived at the Admiralty with dispatches, 
announcing the return of that ship and her consort the Trent 
sloop from the North Pole. It appears that the highest latitude 
the ships ever attained was about 80. 30. longitude 12 east. They 
attempted proceeding to the westward; but, as in the case of 
Captain Phipps in the Racehorse in 1773, they found an im- 
penetrable barrier of ice. The ships proceeded nearly over the 
same space as Captain Phipps did, and met with similar impedi- 
ments to those experienced by that officer. 
Although the, object of the discovery ships under Captain 
Buchan has been defeated for the present by the unfortunate ac- 
cident which befel the Dorothea, and in consequence thereof the 
question of a practicable passage over the North Pole remains pre- 
cisely where it did, there is every reason to believe that the North- 
west Expedition, under Captain Ross, will prove successful. 
The following is an extract of a letter from Mr. William Hurst, 
master of the ship Ariel, to his owners, Messrs. Hammond and 
Smith, dated Stromness, Oct. 8: 
«< A heavy gale came on on the 9th of August from the south- 
ward, and we got clase beset amongst heavy flaws of ice, where 
we were detained till the 8d of September, without any possi- 
bility of getting out. ‘The ship was in great danger while we 
were beset, but happily we escaped clear off; and I observed in 
lat. 76. 8. N. and there found an open sea. We stood off to the 
westward for 12 hours, and met with no ice. - The TSP u GRE 
ships 
