70 
REVIEWS, 
Captain McClure’s own statement of the state of the ice outside the Bay 
of Mercy, in the following year, fully confirms the possibility of Dr. 
Armstrong’s assertion, that the “Investigator” might have been forced 
farther east than that bay. 
“ Hope rose high when, about the 16th of August, open water was seen in the straits 
and the ice of the bay itself began to be loosened from the shore, though it was still con¬ 
fined by the ice outside. A day or two later, however, the bay opened at the outer end, 
and the imprisoned navigators saw, with delight, that a broad lane of water extended 
along the southern shore for ten miles to the eastward. Their hope of reaching it lay in 
a strong south wind blowing the ice of the bay and the ship out with it to seaward. As 
to sawing the whole distance between her and the water, it was impossible; before it 
could be done winter would be on them. There was a chance of such a wind and such a 
release, and the top-gallant yards were crossed, sails bent, and the tide pole taken in. 
Its registry during ten months gave as a result, that the tide rose two feet, and that the 
highest tide was four tides after the full and change of the moon. A beacon was erected 
in lat. 73° 6' 48" N., and long. 118° 15' W., and in a cylinder attached to a pole was 
placed a record, telling what the Investigators had done, and whither they expected to go, 
‘ in the hope,’ says the leader of the expedition, ‘ that it may meet the eye of some future 
explorers of these sterile regions, and throw some light upon the fate of those who per¬ 
haps may never reach beyond these limits.’ 
“The expectation of escape was, however, but short-lived. After the 20th of August 
the temperature fell, slowly but continually; and when the bay, or that portion of it 
that had been open, again froze over, all felt that summer was past, and some unfore¬ 
seen accident could alone save them from wintering again in Mercy Bay. Their summer, 
poor fellows, had been a most cheerless one; the sun, from the cloudy and misty state of 
the atmosphere, not having been, with few exceptions, seen since May.”— Osborn , p. 256. 
It is remarkable that it was on the 16th of August, 1820, that Parry 
made his farthest distance west towards Banks’ Strait, on the south 
shore of Melville Island, near Cape Hay. In this remarkable voyage 
Parry must have been within five miles of the head of the tide, on the 
side opposite to M‘Clu.re; and as the water was open in 1852 for ten 
miles to the east of the Bay of Mercy, it appears certain that if the In¬ 
vestigator had been in Banks’ Strait instead of the Bay of Mercy, that 
she would have lessened her distance from the head of the tide to pro¬ 
bably twenty miles. 
But the question remains, Could she have ever passed that line ? 
We think not; aud that her fate would have been, to be crushed to atoms 
in the pack ice of Banks’ Strait, formed by the junction of the Atlantic 
and Polar tidal streams. We must not forget that both M‘Clure and 
Collinson failed to pass this line in Prince of Wales Strait, although they 
both approached it much nearer than McClure could approach the same 
line in Banks’ Strait. 
To give a familiar example of our meaning, let us suppose the Strait 
of Dover to be a Polar Strait, with the tidal currents always setting to 
and from it simultaneously, as we know they do in the English Channel 
and Horth Sea. Owing to the contraction of the channel at the critical 
point of the head or junction of the tides, the Strait of Dover would be 
permanently blocked up with ice-floes, and although for a few days in 
summer vessels might sail to within a certain distance of the head of 
the tide, both from the West and North, we do not think that any ves- 
