OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
47 
observations, we knew to be rising at this time by the shore. A small boat 1819. 
was moored to the bottom, which consisted of soft mud, in one hundred and 
ninety-one fathoms, by a deep-sea lead weighing one hundred and fifty 
pounds, and a current was found to be setting to the N.N.W., at the rate of 
a quarter of a mile an hour. This served to confirm the remark I had made 
the preceding day respecting the drift of the ships in the offing ; and, unless 
there be what seamen call a “ tide and half tide,” would appear to establish 
the fact of the flood-tide coming from the southward in this part of Prince 
Regent’s Inlet. 
On the 17th, we had a fresh breeze, from the S.S.W., with so thick a fog, Tues. 17, 
that in spite of the most unremitting attention to the sails and the steerage, 
the ships were constantly receiving heavy shocks from the loose masses of 
ice with which the sea was covered, and which, in the present state of the 
weather, could not be distinguished at a sufficient distance to avoid them. 
On the weather clearing up in the afternoon, we saw, for the first time, a 
remarkable bluff headland, which forms the north-eastern point of the en- 
trance into Prince Regent’s Inlet, and to which I gave the name of Cape 
York, after His Royal Highness the Duke of York. A little to the east- 
ward of Cape Fellfoot, we observed six remarkable stripes of snow, near 
the top of the cliff, being very conspicuous at a great distance, when viewed 
from the southward. These stripes, which are formed by the drift of snow 
between the buttress-like projections before described, and which remained 
equally conspicuous on our return the following year, have probably at all 
times much the same appearance, at least about this season of the year, 
and may, on this account, perhaps, be deemed worthy of notice, as a 
landmark. 
At half-past ten A.M., on the 18th, it being quite calm, the small boat was Wed. 18. 
moored to the bottom, in two hundred and ten fathoms, by which means the 
current was ascertained to be setting W.S.W., at the rate of a mile and-a-half 
an hour ; and, from our preceding observations on the time of the tides on 
shore in this neighbourhood, it can scarcely be doubted that this was the 
ebb-tide. 
Mr. Crawford, the Greenland mate of the Hecla, being in quest of a 
narwhal in one of the boats, could not resist the temptation of striking a fine 
black whale, which rose close to him, and which soon ran out two lines of one 
hundred and forty fathoms each, when, after towing the boat some distance, 
the harpoon fortunately drew, and thus saved our lines. 
