PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
273 
probably decayed where the bones were lying. So little did the na- CHAP, 
tives care for these mouldering remains, that springs for catching birds 
were set araonest them. The beach upon which we landed was shingle August, 
and sand, interspersed with pieces of coal, sandstone, flint, and por- 
phyritic granite. V egetation was rather luxuriant, and supplied Mr. 
Collie with three new species. The driftwood was here more abundant 
than at any place we before visited : it was forced high upon the beach, 
probably by the pressure of the ice when driven against the coast. 
It was high water at this station at noon. The tide fell three feet 
and a half in four hours, and ebbed to the south-west. 
A post was here put up for the land expedition, and a bottle 
buried near it. We then embarked and got on board, just as a thick 
fog obscured every thing, and obliged the ship to stand off the coast. 
In the course of the afternoon the dredge was put over, and supplied us 
with some specimens of shells of the area, murex, venus, and buccinum 
genus, and several lumps of coal. We stood to the N. W., and at mid- 
night tacked amongst the loose ice at the edge of the pack in so 
thick a fog that we could not see a hundred yards around us. 
At half past five in the morning a partial dispersion of the fog dis- 
covered to us the land bearing N. 86° E. extending in a N. E. direc- 
tion as far as we could see. At six we tacked in eleven fathoms within 
three miles of it, and not far from an opening into a spacious lake 
which appeared to be the estuary of a considerable river. There was a 
shoal across the mouth connected with the land on the northern side, 
but with a channel for boats in the opposite direction. A large piece 
of ice was aground near it. The country around was low, covered with a 
brown moss, and intersected by water-courses. To the northward of 
the entrance of the lake the coast became higher, and presented an 
extensive range of mud cliffs terminating in a cape, which, as it after- 
wards proved the most distant land seen from the ship, I named after 
Captain Franklin, R. N. under whose command I had the pleasure to 
serve on the first Polar expedition : but as this cape was afterwards 
found to be a little way inland, I transferred the name to the nearest 
conspicuous point of the coast. 
The natives taking advantage of this elevated ground had con- 
