56 



ADMIKALTY SOUND. 



Feb 1827. 



their dogs, and all the furniture. Seeing us proceed to the 

 southward, with the apparent intention of sailing down the 

 inlet, they motioned to us to go to the north, repeatedly calling 

 out ' Sherroo, sherroo,' and pointing to the northward ; which 

 we thought intimated that there was no passage in the direction 

 we were taking. 



At noon, I landed to observe the latitude, and take bearings 

 down the Sound to the S.E., at the bottom of which was a 

 hill, standing by itself, as it were, in mid-channel. The view 

 certainly excited hopes of its being a channel ; and as we had 

 begun to calculate upon reaching Nassau Bay in a few days, 

 we named this hill, Mount Hope. 



The point on which we landed was at the foot of a high 

 snow-capped hill, called by us Mount Seymour ; whence, had 

 not the Indians been near, I should have taken bearings. 



We sailed south-eastward, close to the south shore, until the 

 evening; when from the summit of some hills, about three 

 hundred feet above the sea, we had a view down the Sound, 

 which almost convinced us it would prove to be a channel. 

 The rock at this place differed from any we had seen in the 

 Strait. The mountains are high, and evidently of clay-slate ; 

 but the point, near which we anchored, is a mass of hard, and 

 very quartzose sand- stone, much resembling the old red sand- 

 stone formation of Europe, and precisely like the rock of Goul- 

 burn Island, on the north coast of New Holland.* 



The following morning (23d), we proceeded towards Mount 

 Hope, while running down to which some squalls passed over, 

 clouding the south shore, and as we passed Parry Harbour it 

 bore so much the appearance of a channel, that we stood into 

 it ; but the clouds clearing away soon exposed the bottom to 

 our view, where there seemed to be two arms or inlets. In the 

 south-eastern arm, the shores were covered with thick ice (like the 

 bottom of Ainsworth Harbour, to the west of Parry Harbour, 

 where an immense glacier slopes down to the water''s edge). The 

 south-west arm appeared to be well sheltered, and if it affords 

 a moderate depth of water, would be an excellent harbour. 

 * King's ' Australia,' vol. i. p. 70; also vol. ii. pp, 573, 582, and 613. 



