Notice of Captain V Voyage qf Discovery. 149 
and in some places met with rocks of that kind of limestone nam- 
ed Stinkstone^ from the peculiarly fetid odour it exhales when 
pounded. The middle and western part of this inlet, named 
Prince Regenfs Inlets was blocked up with ice as far as 
Lat 71° N. when their further progress southward also was 
found to be impossible, by reason of the ice On their return 
to Barrow’s Strait, it was found that the barrier of ice extending 
across from Leopold’s Isles to the north coast, had broken up, 
so that now the ships were enabled to pursue their course west- 
wards. Having reached Long. 92° W., they found the land on 
the north side of the Strait, which had been continuous from 
the entrance of Sir James Lancaster’s Sound, interrupted by a 
great inlet. Land, however, was still seen to the westward, and 
the expedition continued its course in that direction. In doing 
so, the ships passed twelve large islands, which were named 
the Islands of New Georgia^ in honour of his Majesty, and 
all of them were apparently more or less surrounded with ice ; 
from which circumstance, partial detentions were unavoidable, 
and their course ran in a sort of zig-zag style, from Lat. 74° N. 
to Lat. 75° N. They landed on several points on the north side 
of Barrow’s Strait, and found in different places extensive forma- 
tions of limestone, some of the varieties being white marble, 
others of a duller aspect, and containing petrifactions of madre- 
pores, and other similar animal marine productions, now found 
only in a living state in seas far to the south, principally in the 
ocean between the tropics. They landed also on an island, 
which was named Byam Martiros Island. Here they met with 
various rocks of the primitive class, as gneiss, granite, and a va- 
riety of talc-slate, with numerous interspersed scales of brown 
mica. Resting on these older rocks, various newer rocks of the 
secondary class were met with, such as sandstone, clay ironstone, 
and stinkstone. The sandstone is white, principally composed 
of grains of transparent quartz, with a few scales of silver-white 
mica. Sometimes the ironstone is imbedded in the sandstone, 
and occasionally the sandstone is much impregnated with iron- 
pyrites, and in some masses was iron shot. The stinkstone 
was of the same description as that found in Prince Regent’s 
* In Prince Regent’s Inlet, whales were found to be very abundant. 
