826 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. May 



faintest appearance of water-cloud was to be dis- 

 tinguished within the range of our vision, which em- 

 braced an arc of a mmdred and sixty degrees. We 

 were perfectly satisfied that no land of a great elevation 

 exists within a distance of eighty miles north of Cape 

 Joseph Henry, and none at all within fifty miles, which 

 from our look-out bounded the visible horizon. We 

 may rest assured therefore that from the coast of Grin- 

 nell Land in latitude 83°, to the eighty-fourth parallel 

 of latitude, stretches the same formidable pack which 

 was encountered by Markham and his companions. 

 Whether or not land exists within the three hundred 

 and sixty miles which stretch from the limit of our 

 view . to the northern axis of the globe, is, so far as 

 sledge travelling is concerned, immaterial. Sixty miles 

 of such pack as we now know to extend north of Cape 

 Joseph Henry is an insuperable obstacle to travelling 

 in that direction with our present appliances ; and I 

 unhesitatingly affirm that it is impracticable to reach 

 the North Pole by the Smith Sound route. 



To our great disappointment we observed that the 

 extensive plains, with numerous deep and broad water- 

 courses leading from the mountains into James Boss 

 Bay, were covered with deep snow ; not a solitary 

 rock or boulder was showing above the continuous 

 white surface. Perhaps in August, when the snow 

 has melted, there may be good feeding-grounds for 

 musk-oxen, but the state of the country when we saw 

 it precluded any hope of meeting with those animals. 



After passing more than an hour on the top of the 

 mountain, taking bearings with a theodolite, we be- 

 came so intensely cold that we were obliged to desist. 



