'HERALD' AND 'PLOVER,' 'NANCY DAWSON.' 115 



proceeded to sea on the 18th. On arriving at Wainwright Inlet 

 the boats were dispatched from the ships on the 25th instant, and 

 Lieutenant Pullen, in command of them, reached Point Barrow on 

 August 4th, in company with the Nancy Dawson. Alter seeing the 

 boats fairly off on their route to the Mackenzie Biver, Mr. Shedden 

 rejoined the Herald in Kotzebue Sound. 



The Herald reached her northernmost lat. 72° 51' n., in long. 

 163° 48' w., on July 29th, and on August 17th an island was dis- 

 covered, with a long range of high land beyond it. Captain Kellett 

 thus describes the landing on the island : — " We reached the island, 

 and found running on it a heavy sea. The First Lieutenant, 

 Maguire, landed, having backed his boat in until he could get foot- 

 hold. I followed his example ; others were anxious to do the same, 

 but the sea was so high I could not permit them. We hoisted the 

 jack and took possession in the name of Her Majesty." " The 

 extent we had to walk over was not more than 30 feet, from which 

 we collected eight different species of plants." " The island is 

 about 4.V miles in extent east and west and 2i north and south, in 

 the shape of a triangle, with the west end as the apex." " It is 

 almost inaccessible on all sides, and a solid mass of granite." " In- 

 numerable black and white divers here found a safe place to deposit 

 their eggs : not a walrus or seal was seen either on the shore or the 

 adjoining ice, and none of the small land birds." 



Speaking of the land to the north Captain Kellett says : — " It 

 becomes a nervous thing to report a discovery of land in these 

 regions without actually landing on it, after the unfortunate mistake 

 to the southward; but as far as a man can be certain, who has 

 130 pairs of eyes to assist him, and all agreeing, I am certain we have 

 discovered an extensive land." The Herald returned to Kotzebue 

 Sound on the 1st of September. 



The Plover, Commander Moore, passed the winter of 1849-50 in 

 Estcholtz Bay, Kotzebue Sound, and he thus describes the breaking 

 up of the ice in the spring : — " As the bay cleared a little, giving 

 the ice more play, the ship became much hampered, requiring the 

 utmost vigilance to prevent her being pushed high upon tho beach 

 or overwhelmed with the pressure of floe upon floe, frequently 

 depending upon her safety upon anchors and cables ; and when the 

 former, losing their hold in the ground, allowed her to drive, they 

 still had the effect of keeping the stem to tho pressure to which I 

 conceive her safety was owing. On the 25th of Juno the ebb-tide 

 of both morning and evening thus forced tho ship on tho ground. 

 The floes, 3 to 4 feet in thickness, rising along tho inclined plain 

 of the cable, then splitting to the distance of several hundred feet 



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