OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
35 
hope, that it would prove a detached stream, from which no obstruction to 1819. 
our progress westerly was to be apprehended. At twenty minutes past 
ten, however, the weather having become hazy, and the wind light, we 
perceived that the ice, along which we had been sailing for the last two 
hours, was joined, at the distance of half a mile to the westward of 
us, to a compact and impenetrable body of floes, which lay across the 
whole breadth of the strait, formed by the island, and the western point 
of Maxwell Bay. We hauled our wind to the northward, just in time to 
avoid being embayed in the ice, on the outer edge of which a considerable 
surf, the effect of the late gale, was then rolling. A second island was dis- 
covered to the southward of the former, to both of which I gave the name 
of Prince Leopold’s Isles, in honour of his Royal Highness Prince Leopold 
op Saxe Coburg. Immediately to the eastward of these islands, there was 
a strong water sky, indicating a considerable extent of open sea, but a 
bright ice blink to the westward afforded little hope, for the present, of 
finding a passage in the desired direction. We saw to-day, for the first 
time, a number of white whales; ( Delphinus Albicans ; ) guillemots, fulmar 
petrels, and kittiwakes, were also numerous near the ice. 
The easterly wind died away on the morning of the 5th, and was sue- Thurs. 5. 
ceeded by light and variable airs, with thick, snowy weather. At noon we 
were in lat. 74° 19' 38", long. 89° 18' 40", the soundings being one hundred 
and thirty-five fathoms, on a muddy bottom. At half-past ten we tried 
whether there were any current, and if so, in what direction it might be 
setting, by mooring a boat to the bottom, with the deep-sea clamms ; but 
none could be detected. An hour before, the same experiment had been 
tried on board the Griper, when Lieutenant Liddon found the current to 
be setting east, at the rate of nine miles per day. While the calm and thick 
weather lasted, a number of the officers and men amused themselves in 
the boats, in endeavouring to kill some of the white whales which were 
swimming about the ships in great numbers ; but the animals were so 
wary, that they would scarcely suffer the boats to approach them within 
thirty or forty yards without diving. Mr. Fisher described them to be 
generally from eighteen to twenty feet in length; and he stated, that he 
had several times heard them emit a shrill, ringing sound, not unlike that of 
musical glasses when badly played. This sound, he further observed, was 
most distinctly heard, when they happened to swim directly beneath the 
boat, even when they were several feet under water, ahd ceased altogether 
