268 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. of the sea. It may be remarked that the castellated appearance of the land 
is very much less on the eastern than on the western side of Admiralty 
Inlet. Towards the west side of Navy-Board Inlet, the land next the sea be- 
comes comparatively low, but rises at the back into high hills, which are round 
at the top ; in this respect forming a striking contrast with the Martin Moun- 
tains, the latter being peaked, though not so sharply as those of Spitzbergen. 
Our horizon being obstructed at noon by the closeness of the land, I was 
desirous of going on shore to observe the meridian altitude ; but, on hauling 
the ships to the wind with that intention, I found the beach so lined with ice 
for about half a mile out, that it was no where practicable to land, and the 
ice itself was too unsteady for the artificial horizons ; we, therefore, con- 
tinued to run to the eastward. A large bear was seen swimming, and our 
boats despatched in pursuit of him ; but before the ship could be rounded 
to, we had run too far to keep sight of him, and the boats returned without 
success. We here passed several large icebergs, and a few narrow streams 
of ice, of the same thickness as that which usually occurs in Baffin’s Bay, 
and which appeared very light to us, in comparison with that to which we 
had lately been accustomed. Being off Cape Liverpool, which headland is 
formed by a projecting point of the same comparatively low land that I have 
mentioned above, the water became of a very light-green colour, and was filled 
with innumerable shoals of the Argonauta Arctica ; we found no bottom with 
eighty fathoms of line, at the distance of two or three miles from the shore. 
In the course of this day’s run we saw two threshers, one black whale, a 
seal, some dovekeys, ivory-gulls, phalaropes, and fulmar-petrels. Considering 
the extraordinary number of whales we had met with in our passage up Sir 
James Lancaster’s Sound in 1819, it could not but be a matter of surprise to 
us that we had now seen so few ; but this circumstance was afterwards satis- 
factorily accounted for in a manner we least expected. In the evening, being 
off Cape Fanshawe, we observed a long low iceberg, between that headland 
and Possession Bay, not less than three-quarters of a mile in length, and 
quite flat and even at the top ; this kind of iceberg appears to be almost 
entirely confined to the western coast of Baffin’s Bay and Davis’ Strait, as we 
never met with them in any other part ; they are probably formed upon the 
low strips of land which occur between the foot of the hills and the sea in 
many parts of this coast. 
As it appeared to me that considerable service might be rendered by a 
general survey of the western coast of Baffin’s Bay, which, from Sir James 
