DISCOVERIES IN WELLINGTON CHANNEL. 511 



face the bitter tempest ; but, says the captain, " nothing would satisfy me but 

 to start, and after proceeding about two miles we were obliged to return 

 and encamp." Detained for a time by bad weather. Penny again started at 

 five P.M. on the 14th, and, after travelling from twenty-five to thirty miles, 

 "running after the sledges a great part of the way," encamped. A large 

 island, bearing north-west from the encampment, the discoverer named 

 Hamilton Island. Starting at one p.m. on the 15th, the travellers drove 

 twenty miles in a straight line, and reached Hamilton Island. "The 

 moment we landed," says Penny, " I set out to a bold headland, or I should 

 say rather, the south-east point of the island ; but I found no traces of the 

 missing ships. From this my inference was, that Sir John Franklin had 

 kept along the north land which I saw from Point Decision." He named 

 the south-east point of the island Cape Washington, and the channel between 

 it and Cornwallis Island, South Channel. 



The discoverer was now in the midst of a region unknown in the geo- 

 graphy of his time. It was, therefore, with the closest attention and the 

 keenest curiosity that he noted each striking or peculiar feature. He ob- 

 served that the ice in South Channel, between Hamilton Island and Corn- 

 wallis Island, was much decayed, that it was traversed by large lanes of water, 

 and, under condition of temperature two or three degrees more favourable, 

 would actually be a navigable passage. Away twenty miles to the westward 

 he descried two islands, the nearest of which he named Stewart Island. He 

 observ^ed also that here the compass had become exceedingly sluggish, and 

 he was therefore obliged to depend wholly on the sun in laying down his 

 courses and bearings. He made the circuit of Hamilton Island, carefully 

 looking for the landmarks, cairns, flagstaffs, etc., which every explorer is 

 instructed by the Admiralty to erect along every newly-discovered route ; 

 but he saw none. At midnight. Penny and Petersen, having passed and 

 named Cape Scoresby and Haddo Bay, pushed on for a headland several 

 miles north-westward, " making sure," writes the captain, " that we should 

 find traces of the missing ships in the shape of a cairn. The point is a very 

 low one, and there was immensely pressed-up ice upon it. But lo, and 

 behold ! to our surprise a strait, and nothing but clear water, opened out 

 before us. The tide seemed to be going at a rapid rate— I should say not 

 less than four knots. The channel or strait is about eight miles in breadth, 

 and ten miles in length from east to west." Away thirty miles to the west- 

 ward was an island which he named Baring Island, and to the north and 

 north-east land could be seen at a distance of about twenty miles. This 

 coast he named Prince Albert Land. No cairn was found on the headland 

 from which the open sea and the strange coasts were seen, and standing upon 

 it, " the expression that escaped me," says Penny, " was — ' No one will ever 

 reach Sir J. Franklin; here we are, and no traces are to be found.'" The 



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