204 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. at eight A.M, pitched the tents on some dry ground on the bank of a ravine. 
Two of the men complained of disordered bowels during the last march, occa- 
sioned, as they supposed, by having taken too copious a draught of very 
cold water at setting out in the morning. They were quite relieved, how- 
ever, by a few hours’ rest, and our snow-blindness had now completely 
left us. The snow-buntings, the only birds seen, were here very nu- 
merous, and were flying about our tents all day like sparrows. We 
moved on towards the Table-hills at five P.M., and crossed several ravines 
without much water in them, running generally to the north-eastward, and 
which therefore, probably, empty themselves into Liddon’s Gulf. As the 
Table-hills are almost entirely composed of the debris of limestone, while we 
had hitherto met with nothing but sandstone, we were anxious to observe 
when the former would be found to commence, but we met with none of it 
»< - ' ' ' " “ 
till within a few hundred yards of the hills, when it began to occur in 
small pieces lying on the surface, with a little granite and feldspar, the 
soil being still quite sandy. We halted between the Table-hills at ten o’clock, 
having travelled eight miles over very swampy ground, and with the snow up 
to our knees in some of the hollows. We met with no living animals during 
this part of the journey, and it may be remarked, generally, that we always 
found the game of every kind more abundant near the sea than inland, 
except on the north coast of Melville Island, which is too barren to afford 
them subsistence. 
Thur. 15. As I was desirous of remaining here till after noon, to obtain observations for 
determining the situation of the Table-hills, the easternmost of which is the 
most conspicuous object on this part of the coast, as well as a mark for the 
anchorage in the Bay of the Heclaand Griper, the people were employed early 
in the morning in carrying stones to the top of it, where a monument ten feet 
high, and the same in breadth at its base, was erected by Mr. Fisher 
and a copper cylinder, containing a full account of our visit, deposited 
within it. In the meantime, Captain Sabine and myself were occupied in 
obtaining the necessary observations, by which the latitude of the hill was 
found to be 74° 48' 33", its longitude 111 0 11' 49", and the variation of the 
magnetic needle 123° 05° 30" Easterly. Having before given some account 
of the minerals found in this neighbourhood, I shall only add on this subject, 
that, among the mineralogical specimens now added to our collection, was 
a piece of fossil wood, found at the foot of the westernmost of the two hills, 
lying loosely and separately upon the sand. It may be imagined, that 
