22 
Sketched by R. M'Cormick, U.N, 
Franklin's Beacon, S.S.E. 
Descending to the ridge, which is about fifty feet above the beach, and from 
thence to the lower one on which the tent stands, we struck it, and erected 
another cairn on the spot where it stood. The rocks here are sparingly fossili- 
ferous. It was a very low tide this morning, being out a hundi'ed feet from the 
last high-water mark. 
After a luncheon of cold bacon and ale, to fortify the boat's crew for their 
long pull they had before them to the next bay, against a head wind and pinch- 
ingly cold air, we about noon launched the boat between the heavy hummocks 
of ice aground, five or six feet in height when high and dry. Had snow, fog, 
and mist, with a short head-sea to buffet with ; the drops of water froze on the 
blades of the oars as they rose from the sea after each stroke, and accumulating 
till the lower edges became fringed with pendant icicles ; the water shipped over 
the bows soon froze at the bottom of the boat, so that had there been much 
sea on we should soon have had a very dangerous kind of immoveable glacier- 
like ballast. 
We saw a seal or two, a flock of ducks, a few dovekies, fulmar petrel, and the 
arctic gull. At 6.45 p.m., on rounding Eden Point, the trending of the coast in 
a S.W. direction enabled us to make sail. We carried away a temporary rudder 
which we had constructed just before we started out of the head of a cask from 
the wreck of the " M'Lellen," American whaler, lost by the unfortunate but 
enterprising seaman. Captain Quayle. 
At 7.30 P.M. we doubled Cape Osborn, and, a quarter of an hour afterwards, 
Franklin's Beacon, standing forth through the mist in strong relief from the side 
of the ridge. At 9.30 p.m. reached our old place of encampment in Refuge 
Bay. Found much more snow here than when we left it last, being very deep 
in places. Pitched the tent close to our cairn, snowing all the time, and 
pinching work to the men's fingers. Thermometer 27°. The state of the tide 
prevented us from hauling up the boat on the shingle ridge, which, for greater 
security, I always get done if possible ; we were therefore obliged to let her ride 
in the cove with an anchor out on shore. 
'J'licsday .'51st. — -The morning's dawn brought with it the same kind of 
weather as yesterday— snow, mist, and fog. Rose at 6.30 a.m. The first fox 
( Carih lafr()puf;) was seen by the watch last night near the boat ; represented to 
have been of a brown and white colour. 1 found my aneroid barometer thia 
moming quite useless, having sustained some injury from being thrown on the 
bc;ach in the clothes-bag in ck^aring the ])oat, and into which it had been acci" 
