344 North Polar Exploration. 



exploration into notice ; by Vesey Hamilton, whose Arctic 

 experience is only second to that of M'Clintock; and by 

 Captain Maury, the great American hydrographer. 



Smith Sound is ascertained to be a broad strait leading 

 into the unknown Polar region, and its shores are the most 

 northern known land in the world. They are, therefore, the 

 best point of departure whence sledge parties may push 

 onwards over the Polar region, and the best wintering station 

 for vessels forming a scientific expedition. It is proposed that 

 two well-fortified gun-boats, of 60-horse power, should pro- 

 -ceed up Baffin's Bay to Smith Sound ; that one should winter 

 near Cape Isabella, at its entrance, and that the other should 

 go further north, so as to winter at a distance of about 

 300 miles from her consort. There is no doubt about 

 vessels being able to reach the entrance of Smith Sound, at the 

 head of Baffin's Bay, every summer. The ice drifting from the 

 seas, whose portals are Smith, Jones, and Lancaster Sounds, 

 forms what is called the middle pack during the summer, 

 stretching across the centre of Baffin's Bay; while the head 

 of the bay, upon which the above sounds open, is always free 

 of ice in the summer, and is called the " North Water." The 

 middle pack is about 170 miles wide, and the reason why it 

 may always be passed, while the Polar pack cannot, is that 

 on the eastern side of Baffin's Bay there is an indentation 

 called Melville Bay, filled with ice firmly attached to the land, 

 and known as the land floe. Vessels make fast to this land 

 floe, while the middle pack drifts past, and thus creep up 

 through a lane of water which is occasionally left between the 

 fixed and drifting ice, sooner or later reaching the "North 

 Water." Out of thirty-eight exploring vessels that have gone 

 up Baffin's Bay since its discovery in 1616 not one has been 

 lost, and not one has failed to reach the "North Water" when 

 the necessary conditions of success have been observed — 

 namely, arrival at the edge of the ice early in the season, and 

 sticking to the land floe. Two only* out of thirty- eight have 

 failed, and neither adhered to these conditions. The whalers 

 do not persevere in the attempt, unless they can pass through 

 early in the season, yet, in twenty-seven out of thirty-two 

 years, from 1817 to 1849, they succeeded in reaching the 

 " North Water." In 1 849 a whaler reached the ' ' North Water" 

 by the 12th of June, and in the years 1825, 28, 32, 33, and 34 



* One of these -was the " North Star," in 1849. She took the pack, and was 

 drifted across Melville Bay, not getting clear of the ice until the navigable season 

 was over. She started very late in the summer. In the very same year a whaler 

 (the "St. Andrew") reached the "North Water" on June 12th, a clear proof 

 that if the "North Star" had started early, she would have got through 

 successfully. 



