266 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



July' kirds flew over our heads, appearing larger than eider-ducks, but with much 

 v^-y-w less white on their backs and wings, and without the duck bill. On our 

 return down the river Captain Lyon landed on the opposite side, for the pur- 

 pose of making a drawing of the fall in the best point of view ; and we 

 then returned on board at thirty minutes past two P.M., after the most gra- 

 tifying visit we had ever paid to the shore in these regions. 



The entrance of this river lies in lat. 67° 18' 05", and in longitude, by 

 chronometers, 81° 25' 20". We found at half tide from ten to twelve feet 

 water in mid-channel, for a mile below the first shallows, and it then 

 quickly deepens to as many fathoms. The banks of the river had still 

 a good deal of snow cleaving to them in some places, and we narrowly 

 escaped being swamped by a heavy mass falling off into the water, just after 

 we had rowed away from the spot. The mineralogical character of the land 

 in this neighbourhood continued the same as that last described. 



We found on our return that a fresh southerly breeze, which had been blow- 

 ing for several hours, had driven the ice to some distance from the land ; so 

 that at four P.M., as soon as the flood-tide had slackened, we cast off and made 

 all possible sail to the northward, steering for a headland remarkable for hav- 

 ing a patch of land towards the sea that appeared insular in sailing alongshore. 

 As we approached this headland, which I named after my friend Mr. Edward 

 Leycester Penrhyn, the prospect became more and more enlivening; for 

 the sea was found to be navigable in a degree very seldom experienced in 

 these regions, and, the land trending two or three points to the westward 

 of north, gave us reason to hope we should now be enabled to take a decided 

 and final turn in that anxiously-desired direction. As we rounded Cape 

 Penrhyn at seven P.M., we began gradually to lose sight of the external 

 body of ice, sailing close along that which was still attached in very heavy 

 floes to this part of the coast. A headland, four leagues to the northward of 

 Cape Penrhyn, was named after Mr. Robert Brown, a gentleman with 

 whose knowledge and labours in the department of botany every naturalist 

 is acquainted. Both wind and tide being favourable, our progress was rapid 

 and unobstructed, and nothing could exceed the interest and delight with 

 which so unusual an event was hailed by us. Before midnight the wind 

 came more off the land, and then became light and variable, after which it 

 settled in the north-west with thick weather for several hours. 

 Sun. 14, As, however, we had now a channel open between the ice and the land, 



