187C ARRIVE AT DISCOVERY BAY. 131 



ice we were obliged to secure the ship near Bellot 

 Island until the evening, when with considerable 

 trouble, and after many narrow escapes of being 

 nipped, we at last joined company with the ' Discovery,' 

 after a separation of eleven months and-a-half. 



As there were no tidings of Lieutenant Beaumont 

 and his party, preparations were immediately made 

 for the ' Alert ' to cross the channel to Polaris Bay ; 

 all the invalids with the official papers and natural his- 

 tory collections being sent to the ' Discovery.' 



The ice not permitting us to start, I visited the 

 look-out station with Captain Stephenson, and from an 

 elevation of 1,540 feet, on a clear and calm morning, 

 obtained a magnificent view, but, to our great regret 

 and increasing anxiety, nothing was to be seen of the 

 travellers. A white object was plainly visible at Hall's 

 Eest, but whether it was Beaumont's tent or the second 

 boat, which he would be obliged to abandon and 

 leave there, it was impossible to say ; with such fine 

 weather it was most probable that he would have 

 started. 



We observed a large pool of water in Polaris Bay, 

 and that the ice between Cape Beechey and Cape 

 Lupton was fairly navigable, but near Discovery Bay 

 and elsewhere in Eobeson Channel it was closely 

 packed. On the east side of Hall's Basin and at the 

 north end of Kennedy Channel, there was a great 

 quantity of water near the shore, with large floes 

 drifting with the tidal current in mid-channel. 



The look-out man reported that during the last 

 northerly gale the heavy floes which streamed down 

 Eobeson Channel struck against the projecting point of 



K 2 



