SECOND VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 113 



favour the absorption of heat, the frigorific process seems to be carried on '^^l. 

 with increased vigour, defining very clearly the change from summer to 



winter, with little or no intermediate interval to which the name of autumn 

 can be distinctly assigned. 



The gale continuing the same both in direction and force on the 2d, I Tuei. 2. 

 ordered the topmasts to be struck in the evening, being apprehensive of 

 starting the anchors during the night in some of the violent squalls that blew 

 off the land ; and it was not till two P.M. on the 3d that the gale began to Wed. -i. 

 moderate. The evening was therefore employed in Adding the topmasts 

 and top-gallant-masts, and in other preparations for moving ; and on the fol- 

 lowing morning, having cast by hawsers fastened to the rocks, we left the Thur.4. 

 cove at eight A.M. A boat being kept ahead to sound, discovered and 

 enabled us to avoid another rocky shoal with twelve feet water upon it, and 

 only a yard or two in breadth, lying a little to the northward of our former 

 track into the cove. 



The anchorage we had now left, and which from the security it had 

 afforded us obtained the name of Safety Cove, lies in lat. 66° 31' 59", and 

 in longitude, by chronometers, 83° 48' 54", being in the north-eastern corner 

 of a considerable bend in the coast, which seems to be full of dangerous 

 rocks and shoals, mostly covered by the tide, and is therefore distinguished 

 on the chart as the Bay of Shoals. There Averc considerable flocks of 

 the long-tailed duck feeding on the innumerable shrimps (cancer iiugajc, of 

 Phipps's Vol/.) with which the sea swarmed in all this neighbourhood. The 

 ground being almost wholly covered with snow, our examination of the natu- 

 ral productions was necessarily much limited : the rocks were however prin- 

 cipally of gneiss, and a fine specimen of asbestous actynolite was brought on 

 board from a large mass of that substance. 



As soon as we had cleared the shoals, all sail was made along-shore to the 

 south-east. We found the ice closely packed against the high western land, 

 and as we advanced it gradually led us in towards the eastern shore till, at 

 half-past eleven A.M., when we had sailed about ten miles from the cove, no 

 passage could be seen from the crow's nest between the land and the ice. 

 Soon after noon, therefore, Captain Lyon and myself, accompanied by a second 

 boat from each ship, went in-shore to look for a place in which we might 

 remain till the ice had drifted farther down the inlet. We soon succeeded 

 in discovering a roadstead secure enough from wind and sea, but open to the 

 ice in the event of its taking a turn that way. As however it was necessary 



Q 



