466 THEOUGH THE MAOKENZIJE BASIN 



becoming shut in by ice, which caused the ship (Investi- 

 gator) to ground, and later to winter in Mercy Bay, he 

 would in all probability have got to open water, or have 

 entered and floated eastward with the main pack, and have 

 ultimately succeeded in accomplishing his own discovered 

 northern ISTorth-West Passage, and taken his ship safely to 

 England." 



In 1875 Captain Allen Young, one of McClintock's volun- 

 teer associates of 1857-9, made a gallant attempt to sail 

 through Peel and Eranklin straits, but he was forced back 

 by an impassable barrier of ice in Peel Strait, latitude 72 

 14' north. It was his intention when he got there to pass 

 on the east side of King William Island. This was another 

 case of failure caused hy neglecting to observe Parry's ice 

 canons. Had Young proceeded via Prince Kegent Inlet and 

 Bellot Strait he would in all probability have taken his 

 ship through by the Eranklin North- West Passage to Eng- 

 land. Even McClintock firmly believed that the three or 

 four mile-wide field of ice encountered by him off the west 

 end of Bellot Strait in September, 1858, was the only obstacle 

 which prevented him from taking the Fox southward to the 

 Grreat Fish River, passing east of King William Island, and 

 from thence to a wintering position on Victoria Land, instead 

 of compelling him to lay up in the snug little anchorage 

 which he named Port Kennedy, in honour of the discoverer 

 of Bellot Strait. This he considered an appropriate and 

 agreeable duty, as it is decidedly the port of his predecessor's 

 discovery. 



Before closing these (to me) old and well-known, but 

 always interesting, Arctic reminiscenses of former days, com- 

 piled mainly from the graphic descriptions of McClintock 

 and Schwatka, I would fain hope that their introduction here 

 will have some effect, at least, in the way of enhancing the 

 reader's pleasure in the perusal and use of the combined 

 volume as a whole. I would further express an opinion 

 entertained by me ever since I have carefully read and calmly 



