56 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1819. 
August. 
Tues. 24. 
directly off the land, we were willing, though perhaps without much reason, 
to construe this circumstance into an additional indication of the shores 
near which we were now sailing being altogether composed of islands, down 
the channels between which the wind blew, and that therefore no obstruction 
from continued land was any longer to be apprehended. 
After various unsuccessful attempts to get through the ice which now lay 
in our way, we were at length so fortunate as to accomplish this object by 
“ boring” through several heavy “ streams,” which occasioned the ships to 
receive many severe shocks ; and, at half an hour before midnight, we were 
enabled to pursue our course, through “ sailing ice,” to the westward. 
A fog came on, on the morning of the 24th, which once more reduced us 
to the necessity of depending on the steadiness of the wind for a knowledge 
of the direction in which we were steering, or of having recourse to the 
unpleasant alternative of heaving to, till the weather should become clear. 
The former was, of course, preferred, and we pushed on with all the canvass 
which the Griper’s bad sailing would allow us to carry, using the very 
necessary precaution of keeping the hand-leads constantly going. We 
passed one field of ice, of immense length, the distance which we ran 
along it, without meeting a single break in it, being, according to the 
report of the officers, from eight to ten miles, and its general thickness 
about eight feet. In this manner we had sailed between fifteen and twenty 
miles in a tolerably clear sea, when, on the fog clearing away, at seven 
A.M., we found, by the bearings of the sun, that the wind had not deceived 
us, and that we had made nearly all westing during the night’s run. We 
also saw land to the northward of us, at the distance of nine or ten miles, 
appearing like an island, which it afterwards proved to be, and which I 
named after Viscount Lowther, one of the lords of His Majesty’s treasury. 
Shortly after, we also saw land to the south, so that we could not but 
consider ourselves fortunate in having steered so directly in the proper 
course for sailing in this channel during the continuance of the foggy 
weather. The land to the southward was high and bold, being terminated 
to the eastward by a bluff headland, which I named after Mr. Walker, of 
the Hydrographical Office, at the Admiralty. Immediately at the back of 
Cape Walker, or to the southward of it, the loom of land was distinctly 
visible, but, from the state of the weather, we could not ascertain its extent. 
We here obtained soundings in sixty-three fathoms, on a bottom of sand 
and small stones, with some pieces of coral. 
