38 
When sufficient exercise is not taken, and the diet has been too full and 
liberal, a congestive state of the internal organs is often the result, attended 
with a drowsiness during the day and broken rest at night. The best remedy 
I have found in such cases is a six-grain dose of calomel, and, to allay the dis- 
position to watchfulness, about a scruple of the compound ipecacuanha or Dover's 
powder, given at bed-time. Loss of appetite, from want of tone and energy in 
the digestive organs, sometimes follows the effects of a long and tedious winter 
in some constitutions. A wineglassful of quinine wine, given twice a day, is the 
most efficacious remedy in these cases ; it is best prepared by dissolving about 
a scruple of quinine, with the same quantity of citric acid, in a Avineglassful of 
water, and then adding it to a bottle of wine, either port or sherry, as may best 
suit the occasion. 
In conclusion, I have only to add, in confirmation of these views, that in three 
voyages which I have made to the Polar regions — two to the north and one to 
the south, the latter of four years' duration, — embracing every possible transition 
of climate and exposure, I have never lost a single life, or even had a case of 
serious sickness or scurvy throughout a period of Polar service falling little short 
of seven years. 
R. M'CoRMicK, R.N. 
Dr. M'CoRMicK to Captain Sir E. Belcher, C.B., H.M.S. " Assistance." 
Her Majesty's Ship " North Star," Erebus and Terror Bay, 
Sir, 3d March 1853. 
I HAVE the honour to transmit to you a narrative of my boat expedition up 
Wellington Channel, and sledge journey round Baring Bay, in search of 
Sir John Franklin. 
Having left the ship on the morning of the IQth of August, and returned on 
board again on the night of the 8th of September last, after an absence of 
three weeks, during the vfhole of which time the weather was most unfavourable 
for boat service, having been tempestuous and overcast in the extreme, — sl 
succession of north-westerly gales, which, with strong currents, rendered the 
navigation of this channel a very dangerous one for boats, and not a place 
of shelter between the last bay and Baring Bay. 
After a week passed in a most careful search of Baring Bay all round, and 
ascending the inland ridges of hills, I neither found an opening to the eastward 
or a surface practicable for sledging over inland ; the whole forming a suc- 
cession of steep ridges, with intervening ravines filled vfith snoAv, and running 
parallel with the top of the bay. 
There was no indication whatever of open water in the vicinity ; the gulls 
and other sea-fowl never shaped their course to the eastward. 
Therefore in all probability Jones Sound, instead of continuing its course to 
the westward from Baffin Bay, soon trends round to the north-west. On my 
return down channel I carefully examined every headland and bay, unhappily 
without finding the slightest trace of the missing ships. 
Five of these bays, and several of the most prominent headlands between 
Point Bowden and Cape Osborn, not laid down in the charts, I have availed 
myself of the usual privilege of explorers, and given names to them. 
My party returned on board in good health; and I have great satisfaction in 
bearing testimony to their exceeding good conduct, and they having volun- 
teered to accompany me again in the spring search, I have herewith to submit 
for your consideration my purposed plan for carr3ang out that search. 
In your letter of the 13th of August last I was told that the "Assistance" 
and " Pioneer" would complete the search of the Wellington Channel, and that 
niy course must be to the eastward of this meridian. Sledging, therefore, will 
be entirely out of the question, as Lancaster's Sound opens too early to permit 
of travelling over the ice to any distance and back again. 
The })oat, however, which I had last (and we have none better adapted on 
board) is wliolly inadetjuatc for so long a voyage as the one contemplated, 
viz., (lie exploration of Jones and Smith Sounds, more especially as since your 
departure Commander Inglefield, in the " Isabel," has been so far up both 
these sounds as to render it very improbable that a boat, stowing barely a 
