HISTORICAL SUMMARY 89 



Griper. The ships, without much difficulty, reached the mouth 

 of Lancaster sound, and sailing over the supposed Croker moun- 

 tains, continued westward past Regent inlet on the south, and 

 Wellington channel and Byam Martin channel on the north, 

 reached the south side of Melville island, where the winter 

 was safely passed by both ships in a small cove called Winter 

 harbour. The following summer an attempt was made to pene- 

 trate the heavy arctic ice which forms a perpetual barrier across 

 the strait between Melville island and Banks island ; this prov- 

 ing impossible, the expedition returned safely to England in 

 October, 1820. Parry on his voyage passed over nearly half the 

 distance between the Atlantic and Pacific, and saw from his 

 farthest western point the shores of Banks island beyond the 

 middle of that distance. He laid down, on the north of his 

 track, the chain of islands bearing the names of North Devon, 

 Cornwallis, Bathurst and Melville; and on the south, North 

 Somerset, Cape Walker and Banks. 



Sir W. E. Parry, in 1821, made his third voyage to the Arc- 

 tic islands, in command of the Fury, having as second in 

 command Captain G. E. Lyon, in the Hecla. This time the 

 attempt was made through Hudson strait and up Fox channel. 

 The first season, he examined Repulse bay and went into winter 

 quarters at Winter island, a few miles beyond the eastern 

 entrance of the Frozen strait of Middleton, whose accuracy was 

 proved after being long clouded by the reckless attacks of Dobbs. 

 The ships were released from the ice on the 28th of June, and 

 no time was lost in pushing northward, until stopped by the 

 heavy ice off the eastern mouth of Fury and Hecla strait, where 

 the remainder of that season and the early part of the next were 

 spent in trying to pass through the strait, the eastern part of 

 which remained continuously blocked with heavy ice. 



A fourth time Parry tried to make the northwest passage, by 

 way of Regent inlet. This attempt was terminated by the ship- 

 wreck of the Fury, commanded by Captain Hoppner. With 



