58*2 
last voyage of capt. ross. 
at the same time, that there is scarcely one of them, which can 
be attributed to that individual, for the whole of them were 
accomplished by Commander Ross, without whom, the entire 
expedition would scarcely have presented a single circumstance 
worthy of being recorded. 
According to his own statement, Capt. Ross commences his 
discoveries a few days after leaving Fury Beach; when having 
rounded Cape Gang, and keeping the western shore close on 
board, he ran down the coast in a S.W. by W. course, until he 
had passed the latitude of 72° north, in longitude 94° west. 
A considerable inlet was here found, leading to the westward, 
the examination of which occupied Commander Ross two days. 
It was here that the Victory was first seriously obstructed by the 
ice, the extension of which was sure to take place, from the 
south cape of the inlet, in a solid mass, round by south and east, 
to east-north*east. Owing to this circumstance, the shallowness 
of the water, the rapidity of the tides, the tempestuous weather, 
the irregularity of the coast, and the numerous inlets and rocks, 
for which it was remarkable, the progress was no less dangerous 
than tedious, yet they succeeded in penetrating below the 
latitude of 70° north, in longitude 92° west, where the land, 
after having carried them as far east as 90°, took a direction 
decidedly westerly, while the land at the distance of forty miles 
to the southward, was seen trending east and west. 
Here the expedition was arrested by an impenetrable barrier 
of ice, and the ship was moored in her first winter harbour, 
which was called Felix Harbour; the entire continent to the 
southward being named “ Boothia,” as well as the isthmus, 
the peninsula to the north and the eastern sea. Of the result 
of this part of the expedition, Capt. Ross considers it to have 
been conclusive, and highly important to science ; in what re* 
spect, however, there are not any particulars extant. The mere 
discovery of a barren tract of land, and of seas, which are 
covered with ice three-fourths of the year, and to which no 
direct advantages whatever are attached, cannot be said to be of 
any value, either in a national sense, or conducive to the promo¬ 
tion of the commerce of the country. There could be no 
