Polar Expedition. 313 



pulse Bay. The furthest west which they attained was 86° 

 of longitude, and the highest latitude only 69° 48' N; and 

 they finally brought up for winter-quarters at a small isle 

 which they named Winter Island, in 82° 53' W. longitude, 

 and latitude 66° 11' N. 



The chief part of the summer of 1821 was occupied in exa- 

 mining Repulse Bay, and some inlets to the eastward of it, 

 through some one or other of which they hoped to find a pas- 

 sage into the Polar Sea. In this they were disappointed, for 

 all the openings proved to be only deep inlets, which ran into 

 the continent of America, While thus occupied, early in Oc- 

 tober the sea began to freeze : and on the 8th of that month 

 the ships were laid up for the winter in the situation noted 

 above. Here at Winter Island the Expedition was frozen 

 up from the 8th of October 1821 to the 2d of July 1822. 



The most beneficial effects resulted from the system of 

 heating the ships with currents of warm air. These were di- 

 rected to every requisite part by means of metallic tubes, and 

 so well did the contrivance answer its purpose, that the lowest 

 temperature experienced during the winter was 35° below zero. 

 In the second winter it was ten degrees lower, viz. 4-5° below 

 zero ; but this was not near so difficult to endure, nor so in- 

 convenient, as the cold in Capt. Parry's first voyage, nor indeed, 

 if we are rightly instructed, as that felt in the northern stations 

 of the Hudson's Bay traders on the American continent. 



In the season of 1822, the vessels having steered along the 

 coast to the north, penetrated only to the long, of 82° 50', 

 and lat. 69° 40'; and, after exploring several mlets &c. in their 

 brief cruize, they were finally moored for their second winter, 

 about a mile apart, in 81° 44' W. long, and lat. 69° 21' N. 

 Here, close to another small isle, they remamed from the 

 21th of September 1822 to the 8th of last August. They had 

 latterly entered a strait leading to the westward. From the 

 accounts of a party of Esquimaux and their own observations, 

 they had every reason to believe that this strait separated all 

 the land to the northward from the continent of America. 

 After getting about fifteen miles within the entrance of it, 

 however, they were stopped by the ice ; but from the persua- 

 sion that they were in the right channel for getting to the 

 westward, they remained there for nearly a month, in daily 

 expectation that the ice would break up. In this last hope 

 they were again quite disappointed, and on the 19tli of Sep- 

 tember, the sea having begun to freeze, they left these straits, 

 and laid the siiips up in winter quarters near the small island 

 alluded to, and called by the Esquimaux Igloolik. 



The. inlet where the second winter was spent presented a 

 Vol.62. No. 306. Oc/f. 1823. Rr solid 



