APPENDIX NO. II. 
301 
On reaching Melville Bay I found the shore-ices so decayed that I 
did not deem it advisable to attempt the usual passage along the fast 
floes of the land, but stood directly to the northward and westward, 
as indicated by my log, until I met the Middle Pack. Here we 
headed nearly direct for Cape York, and succeeded in crossing the bay 
without injury in ten days after first encountering the ice. On the 
7th of August we reached the headland of Sir Thomas Smith’s Sound, 
and passed the highest point attained by our predecessor, Captain 
Inglefield, 11. N. 
So far our observations accorded completely with the experience of 
this gallant officer in the summer of 1852. A fresh breeze, with a 
swell setting in from the southward and westward; marks upon the 
rocks indicating regular tides; no ice visible from aloft, and all the 
signs of continuous open water. 
As we advanced, however, a belt of heavy stream-ice was seen,—an 
evident precursor of drift; and a little afterward it became evident 
that the channel to the northward was obstructed by a drifting pack. 
We were still too far to the south to carry out the views I had 
formed of our purposed search, and it became my duty, therefore, to 
attempt the penetration of this ice. Before doing this, I selected an 
appropriate inlet for a provision-depot, and buried there a supply of 
beef, pork, and bread; at the same place we deposited our Francis’s 
life-boat, covering it carefully with wet sand, and overlaying the 
frozen mass with stones and moss. We afterward found that the 
Esquimaux had hunted around this inlet; but the cache , which we 
had thus secured as our own resort in case of emergency, escaped 
detection. 
No one having yet visited this coast, I landed on the most promi¬ 
nent western headland of a group of small islands,—the Littleton 
Islands of Inglefield,—and erected there a flagstaff and beacon; near 
this beacon, according to preconcerted arrangement, we deposited 
official despatches and our private letters of farewell. 
My first design in entering the pack was to force a passage to the 
north ; but, after reaching latitude 78° 45' N., we found the ice hugging 
the American shore, and extending in a drifting mass completely 
across the channel. This ice gradually bore down upon us, and we 
were forced to seek the comparatively open spaces of the Greenland 
coast. Still, we should have inevitably been beset and swept to the 
south, but for a small landlocked bay under whose cliffs we found a 
temporary asylum. We named it Refuge Inlet: it carries fifty fathoms 
of water within a biscuit-toss of its northern headland, and, but for a 
