296 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



CHAPTER XI. 



REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF LOCAL ATTRACTION ON THE MAGNETIC NEEDLES OCCA- 

 SIONAL SEPARATION OF A PORTION OF THE FIXED ICE A WHALE KILLED 



OTHER CHARTS DRAWN BY THE ESQUIMAUX ACCOUNT OF A JOURNEY TO THE 



NARROWS OF THE STRAIT DISCOVERY OF THE SEA TO THE WESTWARD TOTAL 



DISRUPTION OF THE ICE AT THE EASTERN ENTRANCE OF THE STRAIT A SECOND 



INSTANCE OF LOCAL ATTRACTION ON THE COMPASSES SAIL THROUGH THE NAR- 

 ROWS, AND AGAIN STOPPED BY FIXED ICE ACCOUNT OF SEVERAL LAND JOURNEYS 



AND BOAT EXCURSIONS OBSERVATIONS ON THE TIDES CONTINUED OBSTACLES 



FROM FIXED ICE. 



1822. The information obtained by Captain Lyon on his late journey with the 

 Esquimaux, served very strongly to confirm all that had before been under- 



llur ' stood from those people, respecting the existence of the desired passage to 

 the westward in this neighbourhood, though the impossibility of Captain 

 Lyon's proceeding farther in that direction, combined with our imperfect 

 knowledge of the language, still left us in some doubt as to the exact posi- 

 tion of the strait in question. It was certain however that it lay somewhere 

 in the direction to which we had already been so long and so anxiously 

 looking, and that its eastern entrance was still occupied by many miles of 

 fixed and therefore impenetrable ice ; but the very impediment that had 

 arrested Captain Lyon's progress, as well as our own daily observations on 

 the state of the ice near its outer margin, appeared to offer a considerable 

 hope that this obstacle must, in the common course of nature, very soon dis- 

 appear, even by the gradual process of dissolution, if it were not more speedily 

 removed by one grand and total disruption. While therefore Captain Lyon 

 was acquainting me with his late proceedings, we shaped a course for Igloolik, 

 in order to continue our look-out upon the ice, and made the tents very accu- 

 rately by the compass, after a run of five leagues, when the Hecla hauled 



