OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



47 



any where else, it follows that the flood must of necessity come in from the 1821 - 

 eastward. The comparative slowness of its rate of running through the 

 narrow passage is easily accounted for by the depth of the channel through 

 which it flows, (exceeding one hundred fathoms,) compared with the bay it 

 has to fill, and which is shallow in many parts. The error into which I had 

 fallen on this occasion has been here particularly noticed, as furnishing 

 another instance of the difficulty of ascertaining the true direction of the 

 flood-tide, without any knowledge of those local circumstances which pro- 

 duce, on many coasts, what seamen call a " tide and half-tide," or " tide 

 and quarter- tide," and which one or two cursory and unconnected ob- 

 servations cannot always detect. In the present instance it appeared 

 that the stream of ebb was still running past the Black Rocks, one 

 hour and three quarters after the time of low water by the shore ; how 

 much longer than this it continued to run we had not an opportunity of 

 ascertaining. 



The weather was overcast during the night, and a calm prevailed till half- 

 past six on the morning of the 19th, at which time we weighed with a light Sun. 19. 

 air from the N.W., and stood towards the passage. At half past eight, we 

 discovered a shoal, dry at half-tide, which lay almost directly in our way, 

 and soundings were found by a boat, from twelve to fourteen fathoms, at the 

 distance of a mile on its eastern and south-eastern sides ; but the wind again 

 falling just as we got between the shoal and the land, and the ebb-tide 

 having just done, we anchored at ten A.M. in twelve fathoms and a half, 

 being about the middle of the channel, which is here between three and 

 four miles in breadth. Mr. Fisher and myself then landed on the shoal, of 

 which the position was favourable for making observations, and for the inter- 

 section of the other angles obtained for the survey of the bay. We found it 

 to be thirty or forty yards in length at low water, and composed of rounded 

 lumps of lime, (many of which contained fossil remains,) a specimen or two 

 of black marble, and some pieces of granite and gneiss. The latitude ob- 

 served was 65° 20' 56" ; the longitude, by chronometers, 84° 57' 04". 5 ; and 

 the variation of the magnetic needle, by the sun's azimuth at noon, 46° 25', 

 westerly. While we were waiting for the meridian altitude, Captain Lyon, 

 who had joined us in his own boat, employed his people in sounding round 

 the shoal which is in most parts bold. We built a pile of stones on the 

 middle of it, but this was altogether covered about one P.M., or at half-flood. 

 In the mean time, a number of our gentlemen had landed on Southampton 



