OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
265 
from it, being much nearer than we had been able to approach it, only six 1820. 
days earlier the preceding season. It is remarkable that we here found a 
strong rippling on the surface of the water, in the same place where we had 
before noticed it; and, as we could discover nothing like shoal- water, or un- 
evenness in the bottom, we concluded it must have been occasioned by some 
particular set, or meeting of the tides in this place. The space between us 
and Cornwallis Island was entirely free from ice, and Wellington 
Channel presented the same broad navigable passage, as on the former 
occasion. 
The continuity or otherwise, of a large portion of the land now to the south- 
ward of us having before remained undetermined, on account of the hazy 
weather we had experienced on our passage to the westward, I was glad to 
have an opportunity of filling up the deficiencies which had unavoidably been 
left in the chart, upon this part of the coast. Immediately to the eastward of 
Cunningham Inlet is a bold headland, which formed the extreme of the 
land visible in this direction, in 1819, 4nd which now being clearly dis- 
tinguished, I named after Major Rennell, a gentleman well known as the 
ablest geographer of the age. At the back of Cape Rennell, the land 
recedes considerably, forming a large bay, which I called Garnier Bay, 
and which, as we did not distinctly see the bottom of it in one part, 
may not improbably be found to communicate with Cunningham Inlet, making 
the intermediate land, on which Cape Rennell stands, an island. Before night 
came on, we had traced the land to the eastward nearly as far as Cape 
Clarence ; but being desirous of leaving no part of this coast unexamined, by 
running past it in the . night, I hove-to at half-past ten, with the ships’ heads 
to the northward, and found no soundings with a hundred and thirty fathoms 
of line. The whole of the land we passed this day was much covered with 
snow, and, perhaps, permanently so, as the mean temperature of the at- 
mosphere had, for some time past, fallen rather below the freezing 
point. If this conclusion be just, it would appear that the present season 
was about, to close-in somewhat earlier than it had done the preceding 
year. A flock of brent-geese, some fulmar petrels, a dovekey, and one or 
two ivory gulls, were all the birds seen in the course of this day’s run. 
To the land along which we had now been sailing, I gave the name of 
North Somerset, in honour of my native county; and the northern shore of 
Barrow’s Strait was called North Devon, after that of Lieutenant Liddon. 
At a quarter past three on the morning of the 30th, we bore up to the Wed. 30. 
2M 
