176 EXPLORING. 
^^Septemher 6. The captain, Mr.Murdangli, Mr. Car- 
ter, and myself started on a walk of exploration. The 
distance between the brig and the shore is not oyer 
three hundred yards, but the travel was arduous. The 
ice was eight and ten feet thick, studded with broken 
bergs and hummocks. These fragments were seldom 
larger than our Rensselaer dining-room, some twenty 
feet square, and, owing either to the rise and fall of the 
tides or the piling action of storms, deep crevices were 
formed around their edges, partially masked by the 
snow which had found its way into them, and by an 
icy crust over the surface. Alternately jumping these 
crevices and clambering up the hummocks between 
them made it a dangerous walk. We had some nar- 
row escapes. Reaching the shore, we pushed forward 
about a mile and a quarter to the head of the inlet, 
and then crossed over on the ice to a cairn that stood 
near it. We found nothing but a communication from 
Captain Ommanney, whose vessels we saw as we en- 
tered the lead yesterday, informing the Secretary of 
the Admiralty that he had been off this place since the 
24th, and that ' no traces are to be found on Cornwal- 
lis Island of the party under Sir John Franklin' — a 
somewhat too confident assertion perhaps, seeing that 
the island, if it be one, is more than fifty miles across, 
and that the observations can hardly have extended- 
beyond the coast line. 
September 7. The spot at which we have been ly- 
ing is in front of Barlow's Inlet. There is no barrier 
between it and our vessels but the young ice, which 
has now attained a thickness of three inches. On the 
east we have the drift plain of Wellington Channel, 
impacted with floes, hummocks, and broken bergs ; and 
to the south we look out upon a wild aggregation of 
