OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
59 
working breeze, that I am confident there must have been a tide setting 1819. 
against us off Cape Cockburn ; but, as it was of material importance to get 
round this headland, before a change of wind should set the ice in upon the 
shore, I did not deem it proper to heave-to, for the purpose of trying the 
direction in which it was running. After three A.M., the ships began to 
make much better way, so that I considered it likely that the tide had 
slackened between three and four o’clock ; and if so, the time of slack water 
at this place would be, on full and change days, a few minutes after eleven : 
and as this time, with the proper correction applied, seems to correspond 
pretty accurately with that of high water at the other places, to the eastward 
and westward, where we had an opportunity of observing it, we could 
scarcely doubt that it was the flood-tide which had now been setting against 
us from the westward. From these circumstances, I have ventured to 
mark the time of high water, and the direction of the flood-tide, upon the 
chart, both being confessedly subject to correction by future navigators. 
Several seals were here seen upon the ice, and a single bird with a long 
bill, resembling a curlew. 
While beating round Cape Cockburn, our soundings were from thirty-three 
to twenty-one fathoms, on a bottom of small broken shells and coral ; and 
some star-fish {Asterias) came up on the lead. After rounding this headland, 
the wind favoured us by coming to the S.S.W. ; and as we stood on to the west- 
ward, the water deepened very gradually till noon, when being in latitude, 
by observation, 75° OT 51", and longitude, by chronometers, 101° 39' 09", 
we sounded in sixty-eight fathoms, on a bottom of mud of a peculiar flesh- 
colour. The high land, which had been seen on the preceding evening, 
over the low beach to the eastward of Cape Cockburn, now appeared also 
to form a part of Bathurst Island, which we afterwards found to be the 
case, (on our return in 1820,) the intermediate parts of the land being too low 
to be clearly distinguished at our present distance. The land to the 
westward of Cape Cockburn sweeps round into a large bay, which I named 
after Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Moore. 
The weather was at this time remarkably serene and clear, and, although 
we saw a line of ice to the southward of us, lying in a direction nearly east 
and west, or parallel to the course on which we were steering, and some 
more land appeared to the westward, yet the space of open water was still 
§0 broad, and the prospect from the mast-head, upon the whole, so flattering, 
that I thought the chances of our separation had now become greater 
