234 Geographical Collections. 
and continuous floe cf ice, near which Captain Parry spent nearly a month in 
endeavouring to work forward the ships against this formidable obstacle. In an 
excursion made on foot over the island, they saw the shores separate beyond the 
narrowed point of the strait, and no land could be seen to the utmost limits of a 
clear horizon. Captain Parry gave to this strait the name of the Fury and He- 
cla. They succeeded in gaining the narrowest part of the strait, but could get 
no further, and at length, after much deliberation, took up their winter station at 
Igloolik. Captain Parry had matured avery bold plan. The Hecla was to have 
been sent home, the greater part of the stores put on board the Fury, with which 
he was to have adventured another winter, and taken the chance of what he might 
‘effect in this and the following summer; but serious symptoms of scurvy began 
to show themselves,—the medical men were unfavourable to such an exposure of 
the sailors, and there was no alternative left but to make for England with all 
speed. On the 17th September, a westerly breeze carried them into the open sea, 
and, shaping their course across the Atlantic, they arrived on the 10th of Octo- 
‘ber in Bressay Sound, Shetland. 
Under the impression that the situation of Prince Regent’s Inlet, south of 
Barrow’s Straits, might preserve it from the action of those westerly currents which 
blocked up the straits of the Fury and Hecla with floes of ice, Captain Parry was 
fitted out for a third voyage, to penetrate through this inlet into the Polar Sea, 
‘and Captain Hoppner was made his companion in the Hecla. He sailed from 
North Fleet on the 18th of May 1824, and in the middle of June had made his 
“entry into Davis’ Straits, and found the season peculiarly rigorous: the barrier 
of ice was immoveable, which obliged them to go as high as 74°, to get round 
this barrier. The 9th of September had arrived before they had succeeded in 
reaching its termination. On the 26th, they found themselves at the entrance 
of Prince Regent’s Inlet, and on the 27th at Port Bowen, and here they once 
“more were doomed to pass a polar winter. The spring was more favourable than 
they had found it in Hudson’s Bay. On the i9th July 1625, the floe which 
extended across the harbour separated, and on the 20th they were out at sea. 
They stood across the inlet, passed Leopold Islands, touched the continent near 
Cape Seppings, and thence proceeded down the strait, till on the 30th, a hard 
gale blowing from the northward, brought in the ice upon them ; and so disas- 
trous were the consequences, that it became necessary to abandon the Hecla, and 
her men and part of her stores were removed on board the Fury. After so dread- 
ful a disaster, every idea of prosecuting farther the objects of the voyage was of 
necessity abandoned ; and it being now the end of August, there was just time 
to regain their native coast before winter. After an easy passage across the At- 
lantic, they made their way round the northern border of the Orkney Islands, to 
Peterhead, and thence to the Thames. ‘The existence of a Polar Sea, the sepa- 
ration of Greenland from the continent of America, the dispersion of numerous 
groups of islands between these two territories, the final junction of Hudson and 
Baffin’s Bay, are among the more striking geegraphical results of these voyages ; 
but connected with future researches, and those changes to which we have before 
turned the reader’s attention, we have learnt the existence of currents constantly 
" moving to the west,—we have seen Captain Parry navigate up Baflin’s Bay, to 
arrive above the great floes of ice brought down by these currents,—we have seen 
the deposition of these ices intimately connected with the situation of the straits 
* and inlets, that when not impelled by contrary winds, or local and occasional cur- 
"rents, the ice moves constantly to the west,—that the western sides of seas and 
inlets, having a tendency at all approaching to north and south, are, at a given 
season of the year, generally more encumbered with ice than those shores which 
have an opposite aspect,—and finally, we have seen, as might a priori have been 
supposed, that the temperature of the water coming from the Polar Seas is higher 
than that of the frozen bays and inlets. Upon the constancy of some of these 
phenomena, we have further seen an expedition planned, and we must remain 
convinced, that instead of this current, as advanced by some writers, bringing the 
masses of ice so closely along as to render the navigation of these channels for 
