Feb. 1827. 



ADMIRALTY SOUND. 



57 



After satisfying ovirselves that there was no channel here, we 

 bore up on our original course ; but, before long, found our- 

 selves within two miles of the bottom of the Sound ; which is 

 shallow, and appears to receive two rivers. The great quantity 

 of ice water, which mingles here with the sea, changed its 

 colour to so pale a blue, that we thought ourselves in fresh 

 water. 



Mount Hope proved to be an isolated mass of hills, lying 

 like the rest N.W. and S.E., having lowland to the southward, 

 over which nothing Avas visible except one hill, thirty or forty 

 miles distant, covered with snow, to which the rays of the sun 

 gave the appearance of a sheet of gold. Finding ourselves 

 embayed, we hastened out of the scrape, and, after beating for 

 some hours, anchored in Parry Harbour. 



Our entrance into a little cove in Parry Harbour disturbed 

 a quantity of ducks, steamers, shags, and geese. Their numbers 

 showed that Indians had not lately visited it. 



Next day we reached Ainsworth Harbour, which is of the 

 same character as Parry Harbour, and affords perfect security 

 for small vessels : by dint of sweeping, we reached a secure 

 anchorage in a cove at the south-east corner. 



The bottom of the port is formed, as I before said, by an 

 immense glacier, from which, during the night, large masses 

 broke off and fell into the sea with a loud crash,* thus explain- 

 in o; the nocturnal noises we had often heard at Port Famine, 

 and which at the time were thought to arise from the eruption 

 of volcanoes. Such were also, probably, the sounds heard by 

 the Spanish officers during their exploration of the Straits, 

 whilst in the port of Santa Monica, where they had taken 

 refuge from a violent gale of wind.^f* 



* At hig-h tide the sea-water undermines, by thawing-, large masses of 

 ice, which, when the tide falls, want support, and, consequently, break 

 off, bringing after them huge fragments of the g-lacier, and falling- into 

 the still basin with a noise like thunder. 



t " En los dias 2-1, y 25, oimos un ruido sordo, y de corta duracion, 

 que, por el pronto, uos parecio trueno ; pero habiendo reflexionado, nos 

 inclinamos a creer que fue efecto de alguna explosion subterranea, 



formado 



