28 



NATURE 



\Nov. 9, 18 



By 8 A.M. on the morning of the 8th we had succeeded 

 in reaching the land water off Cape Victoria, having sus- 

 tained no more serious damage during this severe trial 

 than sprung rudder heads, consequent on the frequent 

 necessity of going full speed astern ; all heartily glad to 

 be out of the pack ice, The two islands marked on the 

 chart, on the authority of Dr. Hayes, as existing in the 

 entrance of Hayes Sound are, as originally represented 

 by the present Admiral Inglefield, in reality joined ; the 

 three capes named by the latter, north of Cape Sabine, 

 are very prominent headlands, and readily sighted from a 

 sh'p's deck from any position north of Littleton Island. 

 There is no sign of an inlet along the very slightly in- 

 dented coast line between his Cape Camperdown and 

 Cape Albert. His Princess Marie Bay is the inlet north 

 of the land in the middle of the sound, but whether that 

 be an island or a peninsula remains to be determined ; 

 and his Cape Victoria is evidently one of the headlands 

 on the present Grinnell Land. 



It is necessarily an unthankful office to find fault with 

 our predecessors ; but navigators cannot be too careful 

 how they remove from the chart names given by the 

 original discoverers, merely because during a gale of wind 

 a bearing or an estimated distance is a trifle wrong ; and 

 when the corrector or improver is also himself consider- 

 ably wrong, and in fact produces a more unreliable chart 

 than the first one, he deserves blame. The names given 

 to the headlands undoubtedly discovered by Admiral 

 Inglefield should not have been altered by Doctors Kane 

 and Hayes, each of whom published very misleading 

 delineations of the same coast. 



It is as yet uncertain whether Hayes Sound is a channel 

 or not. The flood tide coming from the eastward, the 

 apparent continuity of the western hills, and the absence 

 of berg pieces or heavy ice high up the sound, would lead 

 to the supposition that it was closed ; but considering the 

 general configuration of the neighbouring land and the 

 fact that the ebb or east running tidal current was stronger 

 than that during the flood — but this the westerly wind 

 might have occasioned — and the numerous Esquimaux 

 remains which are usually found in channels, there seems 

 no reason why we may not reasonably expect the exist- 

 ence of a narrow opening leading to a western sea. The 

 very decayed state of the ice would be the natural result 

 either from strong tidal currents in a long fiord or the 

 increased strength of the ebb tide occasioned by an 

 easterly set from the Polar Sea. 



On passing what is called on the chart Cape Victoria, 

 Commander Markham landed to ascertain the state of 

 the ice, but a very thick fog and snowstorm coming on 

 he was obliged to return. The ships were secured to the 

 floe in Prmcess Marie opening which consisted of the last 

 season's ice which had not cleared out : it was very much 

 decayed but sufficiently strong to prevent our forcing our 

 way through it — and in fact when pressing in with the 

 flood time it became so coiiipact that at one time the ship 

 was in danger of being driven on shore. At high water 

 it opened and we succeeded in crossing the bay and 

 securing the ships to the land ice in Franklin Pierce Bay 

 on the southern shore of Grinnell Land. 



On the morning of August 9, after depositing a record 

 in a small cairn erected on a spur of the limestone hills, 

 200 feet above the sea, on the west side of the bay, one 

 and a half miles east from Cape Harrison, we gained 

 three miles of easting ; but, being unable to round Cape 

 Prescott, were compelled to make the ships fast to an ex- 

 tensive floe extending from that cape to Norman Lockyer 

 Island, which stopped all further progress. Franklin 

 Pierce Bay, which is about three miles broad and two and 

 a half deep, and in which we found an unbroken smooth 

 floe of one season's ice, is protected from any heavy pres- 

 sure by Norman Lockyer Ibland and the "Walrus Shoal, 

 situated one mile further to the eastward ; it is therefore 

 a fit position for winter quarters. But, as far as we could 



judge during our short stay, there is veiy little game ) 

 curable in the neighbourhood. The shoal was so nai 

 in consequence of the numerous ancient remains 

 Esquimaux found on the island, who, by the numbei 

 bones found lying about, had evidently subsisted pri 

 pally on these animals. At present this neighbourh 

 may be considered as the northern limit of their m\\ 

 tion, only a very few having been seen farther to the no 

 The comparatively sluggish tidal motion at the entra 

 denotes that the coast lies out of the main run of 

 stream, and if so, Princess Marie opening will probe 

 prove to be merely a deep inlet. In the extended b< 

 of Smith's Sound the southerly current and the t 

 streams run in a direct line between Cape Frazer 

 Cape Isabella, producing eddies and accumulating 

 ice in any open water space on either side of that cou 



August being proverbially a calm month in the Ar 

 seas, and the western mountains protecting the c( 

 from winds blowing off the shore, the ice is inclinec 

 hug the land, and, except during strong westerly wind 

 large amount of patience must be exercised by any 

 striving to advance to the northward. The pack in 

 offing in the main channel consisted principally of 

 floes which did not clear out of the sound during 

 previous season, mixed with light one-season ice, fori 

 in Kennedy Channel and its numerous bays, and in Hi 

 Basin. Amorns;st these were scattered numerous icebt 

 discharged from the Humboldt Glacier, and the 

 smaller ones on the eastern shores, and here and thei 

 heavy blue-topped hummocky floe of ancient ice fi 

 the Arctic basin, but of unknown thickness. By 

 scarcity of these the main drift of the northern ic( 

 apparently in some other direction. 



During the fortnight we were delayed in this nei 

 bourhood, in the middle of August and the height 

 the Arctic summer, a constant watch was kept on 

 pack, and as oftt n as possible from high elevations, fi 

 which we were able to distinguish even the eastern shi 

 with its glacier and heavy barrier of fringing icebe 

 Although small openings were seen occasionally, I 

 satisfied that north of Cape Sabine it was at no t 

 navigable to the smallest extent, and that any ve; 

 which endeavoured to force a passage through the mic 

 ice here, where it is drifting steadily to>vards an c 

 narrowing opening, as many have succeeded in doing 

 the more open sea of Baffin's Bay, would decidedly 

 beset in the pack and be carried with it to the soi 

 ward. 



We were delayed near Walrus Shoal for three di 

 unable to move more than a mile in any direction, u 

 August 12, when, during a calm, the ice set off sh 

 with the ebb tide, and allowed us without much troi 

 to steam past Cape Hawks, and between it and Washi 

 ton Irving (or Sphinx) Island — a very conspicuous la 

 mark — but here the ice prevented any further movemi 

 the flood tide closing in the channel by which we ': 

 advanced. A large depot of 3,600 rations of provisi 

 was landed on the northern side of Cape Schott, an 

 notice of our progress deposited in a cairn on the sum 

 of Washington Irving Island. Two cairns were foi 

 there, but they contained no documents, and were m 

 too old to have been built by Dr. Hayes in 1866, the c 

 time any traveller has journeyed past the position. 



On the western shore of Dobbin Bay there is no she 

 obtainable, and the tides run with much greater rapi< 

 than off the coast farther to the westward. During 

 next ebb tide, August 13, after blasting a passage throi 

 a neck of ice, I succeeded in conducting the ships to 

 eastern shore, and docking them in an extensive floe f 

 miles north-west of Cape Hilgard. A mile north of 

 position was an island, having a channel half a r 

 broad between it and the eastern shore of the t 

 named Prince Imperial Island. The land ice which ] 

 not broken out this season extended from the island i 



