Winterings in the Arctic Regions during the last fifty years. 343 



to explore the wide unknown regions to the north of America, 

 to determine how far the continent extended towards the pole, 

 or whether islands lay off the coast, &c. 



As the first of these voyages, we must name that undertaken 

 in 1818 by Sir John Ross. Properly speaking, he only repeated 

 the voyage made two centuries previously by Baffin, but did not 

 consider it advisable to penetrate any further than the latter, and 

 returned to England in the autumn of the same year, after making 

 the rich fisheries in Lancaster Sound and Pond Bay accessible. 

 If, therefore, this voyage did not essentially advance discovery, 

 it nevertheless opened up a perfectly new region for the fishery 

 in these waters. 



The next expedition which sailed from England, well equipped 

 scientifically and indeed with the intention of wintering, was 

 sent out in the following year under Parry*, who had accom- 

 panied the preceding expedition under Ross. As this is the 

 first wintering of a scientific expedition that produced valuable 

 results, and the leaders of all subsequent voyages having guided 

 themselves by the observations collected in it by Parry, we may 

 be allowed to consider it somewhat in detail. 



The expedition consisted of two ships, the 'Hecla' and 

 c Griper/ the former of 375, the latter of 180 tons burthen ; 

 the crews respectively of 51 and 36 men, officers and sailors 

 together. On the 15th of May Parry left Yarmouth Roads, and 

 on the 4th of September passed the 110th degree of longitude 

 west of Greenwich, which had been appointed by the Admiralty 

 for the gaining of a prize of ^5000. He wintered in Melville 

 Island, in the place named by him "Winter Harbour," under 

 110° 48' 29"-2 W. long, and 74° 47' 19"'4 N. lat. ; but in the 

 summer of the following year by a land expedition he attained 

 113° 48' W. long., halfway between Baffin's Bay and Behring's 

 Straits. 



The expedition was equipped for two years, and especially 

 well-furnished with the known antiscorbutic materials, such as 

 dried vegetables, sauerkraut, pickles, vinegar (partly in a very 

 concentrated state), lemon-juice with sugar &c, as also with 

 preserved meat, all of the best quality and packed in air-tight 

 vessels. Instead of bread a large stock of carefully dried flour 

 was taken, so that fresh bread, baked on boards could always 

 be had. 



* Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific, performed in the years 1819-20 in H.M.SS. 

 'Hecla' and e Griper' under the orders of William Edward Parry, R.N., 

 P.R.S. : London, 1821. And Supplement to the Appendix of Captain 

 Parry's Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage in 1819-20, 

 containing an account of the suhjects of Natural History : London, 1824. 



