OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
39 
sea ; and there was at this time very little snow remaining upon it. The fixed 1819. 
rocks near the surface consist chiefly of lime-stone ; but quartz, granite and 
hornblende occurred in detached lumps, most of which were incrusted with 
a thin coat of lime. The bed of a small stream, which ran between two rocks 
of lime-stone, was composed entirely of clay-slate. The temperature of this 
stream of water was 42|°, that of the air, in the shade, being 51 1°, and of 
the earth, two or three inches below the surface, 34|°. At a short distance from 
the sea, Lieutenant Hoppner discovered a large mass of iron-stone, which was 
found to attract the magnet very powerfully. There were no traces of inha- 
bitants to be seen on this part of the coast. Part of the vertebrae of a whale 
was found at some distance from the beach ; but this had probably been carried 
there by bears, the tracks of whom were visible on the moist soil. The only 
birds seen were a few ptarmigans (Tetrao Lagopus ) and snow buntings. 
The latitude of the place of observation was 72° 45' 15", and its longitude, by 
the chronometers, 89° 41' 22". The dip of the needle was 88° 26' 42", and the vari- 
ation 118° 23' 37" westerly. The directive power of the horizontal needle, undis- 
turbed as it was by the attraction of the ship, was, even here, found to be so weak, 
in Captain Kater’s azimuth-compasses, which were the most sensible, that they 
required constant tapping with the hand to make them traverse at all. At half 
past one, when the boats landed, Lieut. Beechey found the tide ebbing, and 
it appeared, by the marks on the beach, to have fallen about eighteen inches. 
At fifty minutes past four, when they left the shore, it had fallen six feet and 
a half more, by which we considered the time of high water on that day to be 
about half past twelve, and about twenty minutes past eleven on the full and 
change days of the moon. The whole rise of tide, being nearly the highest 
of the springs, appears to have been ten feet, and the ebb was found to set 
strong to the southward in-shore. A boat being moored to the bottom, at 
three miles’ distance from the land, at five P.M. not the smallest current was 
perceptible. From these and several subsequent observations, there is good 
reason to suppose that the flood-tide comes from the south in this inlet. Be- 
fore the boats left the shore, a staff was erected on a hill near the landing- 
place, having a board nailed to it, on which the names of the ships and the 
date were painted ; and at three yards, in the direction of the magnetic north 
from the staff, which may be distinguished with a glass at three miles’ distance 
from the land, a bottle was buried, with a paper, containing an account of the 
time, and the object of our visit to this spot. 
As soon as the boats returned on board, we bore up to the southward, run- 
