264 Our North Land. 



smaller. Certain it is that the island-pan ice is the product of 

 many winters, five at least. In the months of August and Septem- 

 ber, when we encountered it, it was as hard as flint. An iron ship 

 could not live in the midst of its surging masses. 



This is the sort of ice the Expedition encountered on approaching 

 Nottingham Island, and in which the Neptune broke her propeller- 

 We worked a passage through the thickest of it with considerable 

 difficulty ; but picking out the weakest places, our good ship forced a 

 passage, often with great effort, rolling, and trembling, and grinding, 

 when goaded by these floating pans. 



This ice never finds its way into the Strait until very late in 

 July, and generally disappears by the last of August. On , our 

 return voyage in September, it was almost entirely gone. If you 

 examine a map of the Bay and Strait, you will see that Fox 

 Channel, a vast strait of from sixty to one hundred miles in width, 

 is but a continuation of Hudson Strait, turning abruptly to the 

 north, where Hudson Strait receives the waters of Hudson's Bay. 

 Where Fox Channel and Hudson Strait join, are three islands, 

 viz. : Mill, Salisbury and Nottingham. These constitute a great 

 impediment to the progress of the Arctic ice which often becomes 

 greatly jammed between King's Cape on the north main shore, and 

 Mill Island, and again between Mill and Salisbury Islands, and 

 still again between Salisbury and Nottingham Islands ; so that vast 

 quantities of this ice are often carried south of Nottingham Island far 

 towards Cape Wolstenholme, before finding free entrance to the Strait. 



During our visit at Nottingham Island on the outward voyage, 

 in August, we could not tell what existed north of Salisbury; but 

 the channel between Nottingham and Salisbury was filled, and it 

 extended for at least ten miles southward from our anchorage. 

 However, in leaving Nottingham, we found that the farther south- 

 ward we advanced the more open the water became, until, approach- 

 ing within fifteen miles of the mighty cliffs of Cape Wolstenholme, 

 there was an open channel into which the sailing vessels we sighted 

 struggling in this ice were striving to force a passage. This channel 

 was probably kept open by the strong current of the tides flowing 

 into and out of Hudson's Bay. 



