iSo 8 -i 822 .] CAPTAIN ROSS'S EXPEDITION. 
4 S 
never again able to enter this bay, I believe, from ice or 
fogs which followed the storm. So there remains still a 
point at which land has not been seen, and a possibility of 
a passage, but no probability. 
“On turning the ship to come out of this bay, the needle,, 
which had been steady as they sailed inwards before the 
wind, became exceedingly irregular as soon as they began 
to beat against it Something of this they attribute to 
the form of the ships, and two ships, differently constructed 
from each other, are to repeat next year the experiments 
that have been made. The question is still undecided 
whether Greenland be an island, and it highly becomes 
this country to ascertain the point, if possible, and correct 
the charts of the Polar seas. 
“ Near the north end of Baffin’s Bay, on the east side,, 
at Lake Sir Dudley Digges, along six miles of coast they 
found extensive irregular patches of red snow on the 
country of the new tribe of Esquimaux, whose language 
was much more intelligible to the interpreter who ac¬ 
companied the expedition than he was to the ship’s crew. 
There seems little doubt of the colouring matter being 
caused by birds, which swarm on this coast in one small 
pool of water amid an ocean of icebergs. Captain Ross 
told me his boat’s crew shot, in four hours, 1,600 birds, 
which were drawn to this as the only spot where they 
could find their food, consisting of shrimps and medusa, 
which also constitute the food of the whales. Fish 
are rare in these cold latitudes. The birds are beautiful 
—chiefly puffins, gulls, auks, guillemots, of which great 
numbers are imported ; many specimens of the ivory gulls, 
which are extremely rare; also marine animals of the 
lower orders. 
“ Red snow may be seen in rabbit warrens, and De 
Saussure mentions it in the Alps at Mt. Breven and St. 
Bernard. The Bishop of Oxford and Mr. Honey have 
also seen it on the Alps. De Saussure wishes to believe 
it the pollen of plants, but is at a loss where to find the 
plants. He says it only stains the surface to the depth 
of a few inches, not exceeding three, and seems to be a fine 
