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of early navigators, and in the discovery of a strait leading from 

 Sir Thomas Howe's Welcome into Prince Regent's Inlet. But the 

 undertaking failed in its main object. The strait, which was named 

 after the 'Hecla' and 'Fury,' and which proved to be the only outlet, 

 was found to be impassable, and Parry, after passing two winters 

 and encountering frequent and imminent perils from the rapid tides 

 and whirling masses of ice which beset the ships and irresistibly 

 carried them away from their positions, returned to England. 

 Parry's narrative of this Expedition is one of the most interesting of 

 the Polar voyages, from the long and intimate intercourse which was 

 held with the Esquimaux tribes, and the exquisite embellishments 

 from the pencil of his colleague Captain Lyon. 



Immediately on the return of the Expedition, the Admiralty marked 

 the high estimation in which they held the services of its commander 

 by promoting him to the rank of Captain, and appointing him Acting 

 Hydrographer, and the City of Winchester honoured him with its 

 freedom. 



A year of repose had scarcely elapsed when Captain Parry was 

 summoned to take command of another Expedition destined to renew 

 the attempt to reach Behring's Strait by way of Prince Regent's 

 Inlet in connexion with an overland expedition under Captain 

 Franklin. Parry left England in 1825 and succeeded only in reach- 

 ing Port Bowen, where he passed his fourth dreary winter in the 

 Arctic regions, and after experiencing great peril in the following 

 summer from the ice and tides, which occasioned the loss of one of 

 the ships and very nearly that of the other, he returned home. 



This was the last of the Expeditions in a north-western direction 

 under Captain Parry. The great energy and perseverance which 

 had been displayed by him on all these occasions left no doubt in 

 the minds of the Admiralty that further efforts in the same direction 

 were likely to be fruitless, and for a while Arctic exploration had a 

 respite. In these memorable voyages, under the command of the 

 subject of our memoir, large acquisitions had been made to the geo- 

 graphy of the Polar seas, and science had been promoted by nume- 

 rous observations of a highly interesting and important character, 

 some of which formed the subject of papers in the Transactions 

 of this Society, by Captain Parry and his distinguished associates, 

 Colonel Sabine and Lieutenant H. Forster. 



