588 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



thirty miles should remain, as they had remained for ages, as 

 impassable to ships as the Isthmus of Suez. 



The Investigator passed the winter heeled four degrees to 

 port and elevated a foot out of water by a "nip," in which 

 position she rested quietly for months. Late in October, a 

 sledge-party of six men, headed by McClure, started to tra- 

 verse on foot the distance which it was forbidden their ship to 

 cross. On the 25th, they saw the Polar Ocean ice. The next 

 morning, before daybreak, they ascended a hill six hundred 

 feet high, convinced that the dawn would reveal them the 



CD I 



previous surveys of Sir Edward, and make them the discoverers 

 of the Northwest Passage, by connecting their voyage from the 

 west with his from the east. The return of day showed their 

 anticipations to be correct : Melville Strait was visible to the 

 north, and between it and them, though there was plenty of 

 ice, there was no intervening land. They had discovered the 

 Passage, — that is, an ice-passage, which of course involved a 

 water-passage when the state .of the atmosphere permitted it. 

 Though they regretted bitterly that they could not get their 

 ship through, their only remaining course was to send one of 

 their party home by the well-known route through Barrow's 

 Straits, and thus prove the existence of the passage by the 

 return of one who had made it. They erected a cairn and left 

 a record of their visit, and then commenced their homeward 

 journey to the ship. McClure becamo separated from his com- 

 panions, and nearly perished in the snow. He arrived in 

 safety, however, and the grand discovery was duly celebrated 

 and the main-brace properly spliced. Numerous searching- 

 parties were now from time to time sent out, and in the middle 

 of July the ice broke up and the Investigator was released. 

 She drifted five miles more to the east, — thus reducing the dis- 

 tance of separation to twenty-five miles. Here she was again 

 firmly and inextricably frozen in. Another and another winter 

 passed ; and it was not till the spring of 1853 that relief 



