GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE ICE. 161 



coast at Point Barrow, but along the American continent to the 

 eastward the ice, as far as we aro capable of judging from one 

 winters experience, it remains quiet and immovable. Hence comes 

 the question, Does the effect of the Pacific current lose itself in tin- 

 expanse of the Polar Sea, or does it take an easterly trend ? So far 

 as experience guides us, the positions reached by the Enterprise in 

 1850 prove the existence of a loose pack 100 miles to the north - 

 east of Point Barrow; beyond this, until we come to the records 

 given by Sir E. M'Clure, nothing is known, but we have und ■ n 1 » t . . 1 

 testimony that the pressure on the north face of Banks Land conns 

 from the westward : and here in this strait, between Melville 

 Island and Banks Land, occurs one of those dead locks in the 

 motion of the ice that are remarkably instructive. "\Ye find the 

 Hecla prevented going to the westward along Melville Island by 

 the pressure of the ice on the land from the westward ; and on the 

 opposite shore it became necessary to leave the Investigator to her 

 fate in Mercy Bay from the same cause. Though mention is 

 made in the first autumn of her incarceration of open water having 

 been seen along the coast to the eastward, yet in all the transits 

 across the straits on the ice in 1851, 1852, and 1853, we have no 

 record of any ice movement ; whereas directly the channel east of 

 Melville Island is opened, the Resolute experiences an easterly drift. 

 I forbear to trespass upon the ground so ably and so laboriously 

 explored by the eastern expeditions, knowing that from some of 

 the officers engaged in the exploration from that side a much fuller 

 and more comprehensive account of the movement of the ice north 

 of the Parry Islands, and through Barrow Strait and Lancaster 

 Sound into Baffin Bay, can be given than it is possible for me to 

 do; but so far as can be gathered from the accounts given, it 

 may, I think, be assumed that the pack is looser, and open spaces 

 of water are more frequent to the north than they are to the south 

 of the Parry Group; and the effect of this current from the 

 Northern Sea, after checking the easterly set through M'Clure 

 Strait, assisted the passage of the Erebus and Terror from Barrow 

 Strait to King William Land. Though the Pacific ourreni is in a 

 great measure turned aside from the face of the American con 

 tinent by the abrupt change in the direction of the coast at Point 

 Barrow, the testimony of all navigators is conclusive that it is 

 felt, and that an easterly set pervades to a greater extenl than a 

 westerly one, and that this set is more noticeable to the <asl oi the 

 Mackenzie. The latter river, the Coppermine, the EUlioe, and the 

 Back, no doubt contribute to the arrest of the pack in Victoria 



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