OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



323 



not only that it was still firmly attached to the shores, but that it was now 1822 - 

 almost entirely " hummocky,'' and heavier than any we had seen since v^r^ 

 making Xgloolik ; some of the hummocks, as we afterwards found, measuring 

 from eight to ten feet above the surface of the sea. 



The different character now assumed by the ice, while it certainly damped 

 our hopes of the passage being cleared this season by the gradual effect of 

 dissolution, confirmed however, in a very satisfactory manner, the belief 

 of our being in a broad channel communicating with a western sea. As 

 the conclusions we immediately drew from this circumstance may not be so 

 obvious to others, I shall here briefly explain that, from the manner in which 

 the hummocky floes are formed, it is next to impossible that any of these of 

 considerable extent can ever be produced in a mere inlet having a narrow 

 communication with the sea. There is in fact no ice to which the denomi- 

 nation of " sea-ice" may be more strictly and exclusively applied than this ; 

 and we therefore felt confident that the immense floes which now opposed 

 our progress, must have come from the sea on one side or the other ; while 

 the current, which we had observed to run in an easterly direction in the 

 narrows of this strait, precluded the possibility of such ice having found its 

 way in from that quarter. The only remaining conclusion was, that it must 

 have been set into the Strait from the westward towards the close of a sum- 

 mer, and cemented in its present situation by the frost of the succeeding winter. 



Standing back towards the Eastern Island, which I named after my friend 

 and late companion in these regions, Captain Matthew Liddon of the 

 Royal Navy, and finding the shore quite clear of ice, we dropped our 

 anchors under its lee in twelve fathoms, on a muddy bottom, at the dis- 

 tance of half a mile from the beach. We had scarcely secured the ships, 

 however, when some large masses of heavy drift-ice began to set toward us, 

 and several of these successively coming in contact with the Fury's bows 

 and cable, I directed the anchors to be immediately weighed again, rather 

 than run any risk of damage to them ; and sailing over to the fixed ice, made 

 our hawsers fast to it and lay securely for the night. 



A great deal of snow having fallen in the last two days, scarcely a dark Frid. 30. 

 patch was now to be seen on any part of the land, so that the prospect at 

 daylight on the 30th, was as comfortless as can well be imagined for the 

 parties who were just about to find their way among the rocks and precipices. 

 Soon after four A.M., however, when we had ascertained that the drift-ice 

 was no longer lying in their way, they were all despatched in their different 



2 t 2 



