ARCTIC VOYAGES. 
71 
sel could ever hope to effect a passage through the narrow frozen strait. 
In this manner, we believe, Parry in 1820, and M‘Clure and Collinson 
in 1851, were almost in sight of the line of j auction of the tides, which 
they could not cross, and which, there is reason to think, no ship will 
ever cross in Banks’ or Prince of Wales Strait. 
3. Wellington Channel and Queen's Channel. —These channels lead, 
one on the south and the other on the north, into a wide channel (100 
miles broad), containing Baillie Hamilton and Dundas Islands. The 
Atlantic Tide flows up the "Wellington Channel, and the Polar Tide flows 
down the Queen’s Channel, meeting in the centre where the channel is 
widest. This case of meeting of tides rather resembles what occurs in 
the Irish Sea, where the tidal streams meet in the widest portion, than 
the meeting of tides described at Dover, where the head of the tide co¬ 
incides, as in Banks’ Strait, with the narrowest portion of the strait. 
Under these circumstances, the head of the tide is not impassable, and 
accordingly, we know that the “Assistance” and “Pioneer,” under Bel¬ 
cher and Osborn, did actually cross the head of the Atlantic Tide, and 
winter in Northumberland Sound in 1852, considerably to the north or 
Polar side of the head of the tide. In the following year they wintered 
in the pack of the head of the tide itself off Cape Osborn, and were sub¬ 
sequently abandoned by order of Sir Edward Belcher, who believed it 
to be impossible for them ever to be released. 
This opinion was not concurred in by Captain Osborn, who, how¬ 
ever,“does not make sufficient allowance for Sir Edward Belcher’s dislike 
to be “ towed by a junior” 
“ Almost any time between the 9th and 18th of August, the ‘ Pioneer’ could have 
towed the ‘ Assistance 5 from Dundas Island direct to Cape de Haven; and indeed we 
know now, from a trip made by Captain Inglefield in a boat to that cape from Beechey 
Island, that water to that place would have then been found by the ‘ Pioneer’ and ‘Assist¬ 
ance.’ The log-books of the ‘ Pioneer’ and ‘ North Star,’ and Inglefield’s narrative, collec¬ 
tively attest this interesting fact. 
“ No one was surprised when the ‘ Pioneer’ and ‘ Assistance’ were caught by the drift¬ 
ing pack, and beset at a place called Cape Osborn, 50 miles north of Beechey Island; and 
with the early spring arrangements were made for the abandonment of all of H. M. ships 
in 1854.”— Osborn , p. 844. 
"When we remember that the Grinnell Expedition, under De 
Haven, floated in the ice-floe, up "Wellington Channel, nearly as far 
north as Cape 0shorn, and hack again into .Lancaster Sound, we are led 
to the conclusion that in an ice-hound sea a vessel caught in the floe 
may approach to the line of junction of the tides; hut that, even in a 
broad channel like that at Baillie Hamilton Island, if an unfortunate 
vessel should become entangled in the pack at the head of the tide itself, 
she is likely to remain there for ever. 
We hope in our next Number to bring the American Expeditions 
under the notice of our readers, in connexion with the subject of the At¬ 
lantic Tides of Jones’ Sound and Wellington Channel, and the drifting 
of the “ Besolute” in the floe of Melville Sound; and shall take our 
leave of this interesting subject for the present with the following re¬ 
marks upon the probable position of the lost “Erebus” and “ Terror.” 
