OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
69 
mark, and not less than thirty feet above the level of the sea. We found no 1819. 
indication of this part of the island having been inhabited, unless the 
narwhal’s horn, above alluded to, be considered as such. 
The latitude of the place of observation here, which was within a 
hundred yards of the beach, was 74° 58', the longitude, by chronometers, 
107° 03' 31".7, and the variation of the magnetic needle 151° 30' 03" eas- 
terly. At forty minutes past one P.M., when the boats landed, the tide 
had fallen a foot by the shore. It continued to fall till seven P.M., and 
then rose again, the whole fall of tide not exceeding five or five and a half 
feet. At the time we landed. Lieutenant Beechey tried for a current in the 
offing, but could find none; at half-past seven, the tide was setting E.N.E., at 
the rate of a mile and a half an hour; and, at a quarter before ten, after I 
returned on board, it was still setting slowly to the eastward. By the 
above observations, the time of high water, at the full and change of the 
moon, seems to be about three quarters after one o’clock. The direction of 
the flood-tide does not appear so clear. If it come from the westward, there 
must be a tide and half tide ; but it seems more than probable, on an in- 
spection of the chart, that here, as on the eastern side of Byam Martin Island, 
it will be found to come from the northward between the islands. At the 
top of a hill, immediately above the place of observation, and about a mile 
from the sea, a bottle was buried, containing the usual information, A mound 
of sand and stones was raised over it, and a boarding-pike fixed in the middle. 
We returned on board at half past eight, and found that Lieutenant Beechey 
had, in the mean time, taken a number of useful soundings, and made other 
hydrographical remarks for carrying on the survey of the coast. 
The wind continued light and variable till half-past eight x\.M, on the 3d, FHd. 3. 
when a breeze from the northward once more enabled us to make some 
progress. I was the more anxious to do so, from having perceived that the 
main ice had, for the last twenty-four hours, been gradually, though slowly, 
closing on the shore, thereby contracting the scarcely navigable channel in 
which we were sailing. The land which formed our western extreme was a 
low point, five miles to the westward of our place of observation the preceding 
day, and the ice had already approached this point so much, that there was 
considerable doubt whether any passage could be found between them. As we 
neared the point, we shoaled the water rather quickly, though regularly, from 
thirty to seven fathoms ; but, by keeping a little farther out, which fortunately 
the ice just at that time allowed us to do, we avoided getting into shoaler 
