334 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



muni eating with lakes and streams which annually pour their waters into it. 

 1 affording excellent hay ale navigation to the Esquimaux, and supplying them 

 with the salmon with which they had lately provided us. The farther we 

 went to the westward the higher the hills became ; and the commanding pros- 

 pect thus afforded enahlc'd us distinctly to perceive with a glass that, though 

 the ice had been entirely dissolved in the creek, and for half a mile below it, 

 the whole sea beyond this to the eastward, even as far as Igloolik, was co- 

 vered with one continuous and unbroken floe. 



Having now completely satisfied myself that, as respected both ice and land, 

 there was no navigable passage for ships about this latitude, no time was 

 lost in setting out on our return. To avoid the numerous indentations of 

 Richards' Bay, we kept rather more inland ; by which means, though we at 

 first encountered some of the steep precipices and deeper snow described by 

 our other travellers, we eventually saved ourselves much walking. On this 

 high ridge the hills, which are generally steep on both sides, and with a 

 quantity of the loose debris lying up and down them, occur very close toge- 

 ther ; so that no sooner has the summit of one been gained, than another of 

 equally forbidding aspect presents itself, the valleys between them being 

 chiefly occupied by lakes of various sizes, all except the mere shallow ponds 

 having a floe of solid ice covering their surface. Some of the smaller streams 

 that supply the lakes had now been arrested by the autumnal frost, and the 

 smallest pools on the rocks were frozen to the bottom ; but the larger 

 streams were still running in full force, and no " young " ice had as yet 

 formed upon the lakes. The rocks are here entirely of red granite ; and we 

 frequently noticed rounded and insulated hills of this shape, 



situated at the end of a valley, and appearing as it were to flank it. 

 Frid. 5. Nothing of interest occurred during the rest of our journey to the boat, 

 which we reached before dark on the evening of the 6th, having suffered 

 only a few trifling bruises in the course of our scrambling over the (rocks. 

 The thermometer fell to 19° at night, but our depdt at the boat furnishing 



