158 Account of the Expedition to BaffiiHs Bay. 
the other side of the iceberg, and threw itself into the sea^ 
over the edge of a precipice fifty feet high. 
During the rest of September, the ships of discovery were 
employed in coasting along the western shores of Bafiin'’s Bay, 
On the 19th of September, they reached Cape Walsingham, 
and on the 1st of October, they were ofi* the Earl of Warwick'’s 
Foreland, where Cumberland Strait commences, with a breadth 
of between thirty and forty miles. In tlie morning, the tide 
was observed to carry the ships to the westward, and in the after- 
noon, to the south-east, at the rate of two miles an houi. This 
strong current at the entrance of the strait, naturally impressed 
Captain Boss with the belief, that there was a much better 
chance of a passage here, than in any other part of Baffin’s 
Bay; but the season was now far advanced, and as his in- 
structions to quit the ice “ by the 1st of Octbber, at the 
latest,” were of the most peremptory nature, he had no al- 
ternative but to leave the examination of this inlet for another 
expedition. He accordingly made for Cape Farewell, which 
he passed on the 9th of October, anchored in Brassa Sound in 
Shetland on the SOth, and arrived in Grimsby Hoads, on the 
14th November, without the loss of a single man. 
The circumnavigation of Baffin’s Bay, as performed by Cap- 
tain Boss, has no doubt added greatly to our geographical know- 
ledge of the Arctic regions ; but we cannot allow ourselves to 
agree with him in thinking, that it has “ set at rest for ever the 
question of a North-West passage in that direction.” There 
can be no doubt that Captain Boss saw, or thought he saw, 
land apparently continuous from Disco Bay, round to Cumber- 
land Straits. This apparent continuity in the coast, however, 
is by no means incompatible with the existence of winding in- 
lets of sufficient magnitude, to form a communication between 
Baffin’s Bay and the Polar Sea. 
In the manuscript map of Sir Charles Gieseck4 which we 
have already mentioned, and which is projected on a scale of 
one inch and a half to a degree of latitude, the eastern coast 
of Greenland is fringed with so many islands, that we have no 
hesitation in saying, that Captain Boss never saw the coast 
from the latitude of 69° to that of 76° 30', the most northern 
part of the map. This coast indeed, was not traced by Sir 
Charles Giesecke higher than the latitude of 72° 30', although 
he examined minutely the geological structure and mineralogi- 
