NOTES FROM -AN ARCTIC JOURNAL. 415 
yellow sandstones. At the point where Markham and I landed 
the dip of the granite was to the north. Fog, sleet and a cold wind, 
with a good deal of swell, made landing a very uncomfortable task. 
Through the driving mist and sleet a few Fulmars were to be seen 
whirling like ghosts in the lead-coloured sky above us. The ships 
were now surrounded by the drifting pack coming down the Sound, 
and from this date until our arrival in winter-quarters it was a 
succession of conflicts with the ice, only varied day from day by 
the greater or less number of risks run. 
On the morning of July 30th, after battling twenty-four hours 
fruitlessly with the pack, our ships took refuge in a small harbour 
near Cape Sabine, lying between Brevoort Island and the main- 
land. Before getting under the lee of the land a sounding was 
obtained in 210 fathoms with grey mud. It proved to be richer in 
Diatomacezx (notably Coscinodiscus radiatus) than in Rhizopoda, 
Of the latter Cassidulina, Truncatulina and Nionina were the 
most prominent types.* We remained off and on in the shelter 
of Payer Harbour for five days. Whenever there appeared the 
slightest sign of opening in the pack outside, our two ships ran 
into the ice, and endeavoured to find a lead- or water-way around 
the prominent headland of Cape Sabine, against which the drifting 
ice impinged with great force, rearing up huge hummocks on its 
northern face. 
It was very aggravating, at almost the outset of the Expedition, 
‘to meet with such unexpected delays. We had been led to hope 
that an almost continuous water-way would have been found through 
Smith Sound, and we dreaded greatly being caught in the pack 
and drifted helplessly to the south, feeling how disappointing such 
an untoward result would be to people in England. These delays, 
however, gave me several opportunities of landing and examining 
the surrounding country. Its appearance was sadly bare and 
desolate; the land rose abruptly to a height of 1500 or 2000 feet, 
and was chiefly composed of a red syenite, which does not appear 
to disintegrate freely, and consequently little or no soil had been 
formed in likely spots. No valley led into the interior, and a 
careful search did not produce above twenty flowering plants; 
a pretty little fern, Cystopteris fragilis, was found growing freely 
as high as 250 feet above sea-level. The summits of the hill-tops 
that I ascended were strewed over with boulders of foreign rocks, 
* Brady, ‘Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist.,’ June, 1878, pp, 425—440. 
