474 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



1823. the Hecla's liberation from the ice to the southward before the close 



August. 



w-^w/ oi the season, I no longer considered it prudent or justifiable, upon the 

 slender chance of eventual success now before us, to risk the safety of the 

 officers and men committed to my charge, and whom it was now my first wish 

 to re-conduct in good health to their country and their friends. Having 

 communicated my intentions to the officers and ships' companies, I directed 

 several additions to be made to their ordinary allowance of provisions, par- 

 ticularly in the various anti-scorbutics, which had hitherto been reserved for 

 cases of emergency ; and then beating up to our winter station which, by 

 desire of Mr. Fisher, our Chaplain and Astronomer, I named Turton Bay, 

 we anchored there in the afternoon in ten fathoms, and immediately com- 

 menced our preparations for lightening the Fury. Seven months' provisions, 

 a bower anchor, and a few other stores were received by the Hecla, some of 

 her water before filled as ballast being started to make room for them ; and 

 such other arrangements made as circumstances would permit for improving 

 the stowage of the Fury's hold. The bay was now entirely clear of ice in 

 every part ; and so changed was its appearance in the course of the last four- 

 and-twenty hours, that it was scarcely possible to believe it the same place 

 that we had been accustomed daily to look upon for the ten preceding 

 months. 



The conveyance and stowage of the stores had scarcely been completed, 

 when some loose ice drifting into the bay with the tide, on the night of the 

 Sun. 10. 10th, obliged us hastily to get under way and stand out. On the following 

 Mon. n. morning I ran across to the main-land in the Fury, for the purpose of erect- 

 ing, in compliance with my instructions, a flag-staff fifty-six feet in height, 

 having at its top a ball made of iron hoops and canvass, ten feet in diameter, 

 and a cylinder buried near its foot, containing a parchment with some 

 account of our visit to this place. In the mean time, I requested Captain 

 Lyon to stand over to the point of Igloolik where our walruses had been 

 landed, and to bring off these as well as our boats and tents remaining 

 there. The ice soon after coming in upon the point, it was not without risk 

 of the Hecla's being dangerously beset, that Captain Lyon succeeded in 

 bringing off every thing but one boat. This was indeed no great loss to 

 us, though a great acquisition to the Esquimaux, for being almost worn 

 out, I had intended to break her up previously to leaving the ice. Besides 

 this we purposely left our sledges, and a quantity of wood in pieces of a 

 convenient size for bows, spears, and paddles, distributing them about in 



