284 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



communicating with the sea, and therefore admitting the tide, notwithstand- 

 ing which we were forcibly struck with the fact, that an immense mass of 

 consolidated drift-snow still remained undissolved in it. This circumstance 

 may perhaps appear too trifling to have been noticed in so particular a manner; 

 but to us who anxiously watched every operation connected with the annual 

 process of dissolution, on which all our hopes depended, it could not fail to 

 convey an impression of being a very unusual occurrence, and to imply 

 either a very backward summer or an extraordinary accumulation of snow in 

 the winter. To one or both of these I am still inclined very confidently to 

 attribute it ; for in the locality of this island, low and open as it is to the 

 sun's rays, and in the immediate neighbourhood of a more extensive open 

 sea than any known in this latitude, there is certainly every thing that 

 would, a priori, have been considered calculated to accelerate rather than to 

 retard the process of dissolution. 



The mineralogical character of this islet is similar to that of Igloolik ; but 

 among the pieces of limestone of which it is principally composed, lumps of 

 granite, gneiss, hornblende and mica-slate were also numerous, and I picked 

 up a piece of common iron pyrites. There is a good deal of vegetation also 

 in some parts, and our plant-collectors derived considerable amusement from 

 their walk. We observed a number of roots of scurvy-grass ( cochlearia 

 fenestrataj growing on the beach where nothing else would, but the leaves 

 were as yet scarcely developed, and therefore of no service to us. Some 

 Esquimaux circles of stones were observed in two or three places on the 

 island, which shewed that they occasionally resort to it ; but it is not much 

 frequented by them. 



Having seen all that this little spot produced, we sailed over to the eastern 

 islands, three of which are conspicuous as forming one side of the entrance 

 of the strait, and are laid down with extraordinary precision in Ewerat's 

 chart already inserted in this narrative, (No. 3.) These islands, which I 

 named the Calthorpe Islands, out of respect to Lord Calthorpe, had 

 attracted our attention by two of them appearing at a distance to be of the 

 primitive formation, which had for some time forsaken us. Finding that a 

 great deal of ice had been detached and drifted away since our last attempt 

 in this neighbourhood, we were now enabled to approach the middle island of 

 the three as near as the depth of water would admit; and in the evening made 

 the ships fast to the fixed ice in twelve fathoms, at the distance of a long mile 

 from the shore. The depth was regular and the bottom good in every part. 



