258 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. The wind died away soon after we reached the point, affording no hope of 
making, for the present, any further progress by the drifting of the ice from the 
land; we, therefore, hauled the ships into the best births we could find, in 
doing which the Hecla’s fore-foot rested on the ground for a short time, 
but she was afterwards secured in four fathoms. It was low water by the 
shore at eight P.M. 
Frid. 25 . The ice closed in upon us in the course of the night, leaving not a single 
pool of open water in sight in any direction. It was high-water at half-past 
two A.M., and low-water at three-quarters past eight, so that the tides appeared 
to continue very regular on this part of the coast. The Griper, being very near 
the beach, grounded as the tide fell, so that the water left her between two 
and three feet ; Lieutenant Liddon, therefore, warped out nearer to the Hecla 
in the afternoon, for fear of not getting off when it might be necessary. 
Immediately under the hills, which here, for the first time, in sailing from 
Cape Providence to the eastward, recede about two miles from the sea, was 
the most luxuriant pasture-ground we had yet met with on Melville Island. 
It consisted of about a dozen acres of short thick grass, intennixed with moss, 
which gave it almost the same lively appearance as that of an English mea- 
dow. It was covered with the dung and foot-tracks of musk-oxen, of which 
twelve or fourteen skulls were picked up near it ; and it was here that the 
herd before-mentioned was feeding. When walking over this spot, on which 
there were many small ponds of water, our surprise in some degree ceased 
at the immense distance which these animals must travel in the course of 
their annual visits to these dreary and desolate regions ; as such a pasture 
affording undisturbed and luxuriant feeding during the summer months, may, 
in spite of the general dreary appearance of the island, hold out sufficient 
inducement for their annual emigration. 
A thermometer in the sun about two P.M. stood at 52 ° for a short time, the 
weather being quite calm and fine. Mr, Fisher tried an experiment on the 
specific gravity of a piece of floe-ice found lying on the top of one of the 
grounded masses near the beach. Being formed into a cube, whose sides 
measured two feet, and put into the sea, at the temperature of 33°, with that 
side up which was lying uppermost when first found, three inches and a half 
of it remained above the surface ; but when the opposite side was turned up, 
only three inches appeared above water. The latitude observed at this station 
was 74° 27 ' 19", the longitude 112° 11' 32", and the variation of the magnetic 
needle 114° 34' 45" Easterly. 
