From Cape Young we had a view of the sea thickly covered with ice, of a greater thickness than any we had previously encountered; and we perceived that there was a deeply indented bay lying in our route, and so filled with ice, that our only method of passing it appeared to be by keeping close to the shore, although under the disadvantage of trebling the distance. The coast in this quarter is similar to that which we had passed on the two or three preceding days, and is formed of high limestone cliffs, with intervening shingly beaches; but the country is still more barren, the quantity of limestone debris almost excluding any soil. Flat limestone rocks, having only a few inches of water upon them, skirt the beach, and terminate like a wall in four or five fathoms water. The ice was closely packed against these rocks, and for five miles after passing Cape Young, we made a way for the boats only by the constant use of the hatchet and ice-chisel, and gladly encamped at six o'clock in the evening, after a day's voyage of thirty-one miles. A herd of twenty rein-deer were grazing on the beach, but our hunters were too much fatigued to go in pursuit of them. The encampment was situated in latitude 68° 53' N., and longitude 116° 50' W. The temperature varied in the course of the day from 34° to 50°. We observed that the ice continued to dissolve, but not so rapidly as in the month of July, when the sun did not sink below the horizon.
Thursday, 3rd.We resumed our operations on the morning of the 3d at the usual hour, and with great labour made a passage for the boats. At eleven o'clock we landed to refresh ourselves on a projecting point at the western entrance of a deep bay, having previously passed a river which was about one hundred yards wide, but very shallow. After breakfasting, and obtaining a meridian observation in latitude 68° 53' N., we pushed off again, and for some time made very slow progress. The shores of the bay consisted of beds of limestone, which, shelving into the water, were covered with masses of ice, forced up by the pressure of the pack outside. We were, therefore, compelled to work our way in deeper water, and there the boats, which led by turns, were occasionally exposed to the hazard of being overset by pieces of buoyant ice, which frequently broke off from the bases of the floes. In the language of the whalers, the ice is said to calf, when masses are detached in this manner, and they are sometimes of sufficient magnitude in the Greenland seas to endanger large vessels. The Dolphin was, at one time, nearly crushed to pieces by the closing of two floes; but, fortunately, she had reached a small recess, just as they came in contact, and they recoiled sufficiently to leave a passage for her exit, after she had sustained the trifling damage of a few cracks in the upper planks. The rays of the sun, and the waves acting on the surface of the floes, had, by thawing them irregularly, formed lakes of fresh water of some extent upon their surface. When these pieces of water were of sufficient depth, we availed ourselves of them to make some progress in our voyage, and in this way we frequently sailed over a considerable thickness of ice.
At four o'clock p.m. we had advanced five miles, when to our joy we found a lane of open water, which permitted us to cross to the other side of the bay, where we encamped in latitude 68° 51½' N., and longitude 116° 03' W., having sailed in the course of the day eighteen miles and a half. The bay was named Stapylton in honour of Major-General the Honourable G.A.C. Stapylton, Chairman of the Victualling Board; and on ascending a rising ground we perceived that it communicates with a long, narrow lake. A few miles from the coast the land rises from three to five hundred feet above the sea, and presents many precipitous limestone cliffs, and chains of small lakes. The country is very barren, the only plant we gathered being the yellow poppy, (papaver nudicaule.) By our reckoning we were now nearly in the longitude of the mouth of the Coppermine River, but about seventy miles to the northward of it, we, therefore, entertained an opinion that we were coasting a narrow peninsula, and that we should soon have the pleasure of perceiving the coast take a southerly direction. It was, consequently, with some hopes of beholding the sea on the opposite side of the peninsula that I walked seven or eight miles to the eastward in the night, but I was disappointed. In my way I had occasion to wade through a small lake, when two birds, about the size of the northern diver, and apparently of that genus, swam, with bold and angry gestures, to within a few yards of me, evidently very impatient of any intruder on their domain. Their necks were of a beautiful pale yellow colour, their bodies black with white specks. I considered them to belong to a species not yet described, and regretted that, having left my gun at the tent, it was not in my power to procure one of them for a specimen.
Friday, 4th.Embarking at three a.m. on the 4th, we found little difficulty in reaching the eastern cape of Stapylton Bay, the wind having formed a narrow channel between the ice and the shore in the night. The temperature was low, and in the morning some new ice was formed which we easily broke. We noticed several eider ducks breaking a way through the thin ice for their young ones with their wings, and in this operation they made greater progress than we did in the boats.
On reaching the cape[11] which was named after Vice-Admiral Sir William Johnstone Hope, G.C.B., we descried another point about four or five leagues distant, bearing east-north-east, the intervening bay being filled with closely packed ice. We were now within twelve miles of Cape Young, after a laborious navigation of four times that distance, and the prospect of another bay, equally unpromising, was very vexatious; but our apprehensions were increased by the view of a continuous line of land, extending from north-north-west until it was hid behind the nearer cape, which bore east-north-east, for we feared that it might prove to be a continuation of the main shore. Our crews, though concerned at the delay that so much ice was likely to occasion, set about overcoming the obstacle with a hearty good will, and after an intricate and troublesome navigation of ten or twelve miles amongst the ice, we found the bottom of the bay more open, and were enabled to cross over to the eastern side where we encamped. This bay received the name of the eminent astronomer James South, Esq.
Mr. Kendall having gone to ascertain from the higher ground the trending of the coast, returned in about two hours with the cheering intelligence that the land to the northward was unconnected with the main shore, and that he had seen the latter inclining to the south-east, with a much more open sea than we had lately been accustomed to. As soon as supper was over, I also set out to enjoy the gratifying prospect, and from the extremity of the cape on which we were encamped, and which was named in honour of the Right Honourable Lord Bexley, I beheld the northern land running from north-north-west till it was lost in the horizon on a north 73° east bearing. It seemed to be pretty high but not mountainous; and although broken towards the east, the principal portion of it appeared to be continuous. This island, by far the largest one that was seen, either in the present voyage or on Captain Franklin's former Expedition, was named after that most distinguished philosopher Dr. Hyde Wollaston. The main shore had a direction nearly parallel to Wollaston Land, its most distant point in sight, which I estimated to be fifteen miles off, bearing S. 61° E. On the strait, separating the two shores, I bestowed the names of our excellent little boats, the Dolphin and Union. It varies in width from twelve to twenty miles, and to the eastward seemed to contain merely detached streams of ice, not likely to obstruct the progress of a vessel; but to the westward lay the closely packed ice, filling South's Bay, and extending to seaward. The ice did not, however, entirely close the strait, for I could discern lanes of open water towards Wollaston Land. The packed ice which we had seen lining the coast between Point Clifton and Cape Bexley, may be perhaps considered as an illustration of the remark made by Captain Parry, that the western sides of seas and inlets in those latitudes are more encumbered with ice than the opposite sides; and it is very probable that a ship might have found a passage by keeping along Wollaston Land, an opinion which the appearance of the ice as seen from Cape Bexley, tended to confirm. The latitude of our encampment was 68° 58' N., and its longitude 115° 47' W.; it was within ten miles of our encampment of the preceding night, although we had travelled twenty-five miles in the course of the day.
Saturday, 5th.The party embarked on the 5th, at the usual hour in the morning, with their spirits pleasantly excited by the intelligence of the favourable trending of the coast, communicated by Mr. Kendall, and after doubling Cape Bexley, proceeded under sail, before a west-north-west wind, with a rapidity to which they had lately been unaccustomed. The point of land which Cape Bexley terminates, consists entirely of horizontal beds of limestone, and is nowhere more than three hundred feet above the sea. On the west side, the water is two or three fathoms deep, close to the shore, and the land attains its greatest elevation by a steep rise from the beach. On the east side there are some precipitous cliffs, but the coast in general is skirted by shelving rocks. No soil was seen on the Cape, nor any appearance of vegetation, the ground being every where covered, to the depth of a foot, by fragments of limestone, which are detached by the frost from the solid strata lying beneath. We were much puzzled at first with the appearance of several parallel trenches, a foot deep, running for a great distance amongst the fragments, but on examination they were ascertained to originate in fissures of the subjacent strata. Much quartz being intermixed with the limestone of Cape Bexley, the fragments which covered the ground had, by the action of the weather, lost most of the softer calcareous matter, and were converted into a kind of rasp, very annoying to pedestrians, being capable of destroying a pair of stout English shoes in a walk of a few hours.
At eleven o'clock we came to a pack of ice abutting against the shore, but while we halted to cook breakfast, the wind opened a way for us. In the course of the morning we passed many heavy streams of ice, separated by lanes of open water, which would have afforded an easy passage for a ship. Having obtained a meridian observation for latitude, we re-embarked, and pulled for five miles through an open channel, to Point Cockburn, on the opposite side of a bay, which appeared to be four or five miles deep, and to be quite filled with drift-ice. Many deer were seen grazing near this point, but we did not stop to send a hunter in pursuit of them. We afterwards crossed several other indentations of the coast, skirted by reefs of limestone and low islets, and encamped on Chantry Island, lying close to the main shore, in latitude 68° 45' N., longitude 114° 23' W., having sailed thirty-nine miles in the course of the day. Two islands, lying opposite to our encampment, received the appellations of Manners Sutton and Sir Robert Liston's Islands. The degree of motion in the ice, which was drifting between these islands and the shore, indicated a stronger current of both flood and ebb than we had hitherto seen.
Sunday, 6th.On the 6th, we commenced the day's voyage at three in the morning, but were compelled to put ashore soon afterwards by a stream of ice barring our way. At six o'clock, however, the flowing tide opened it sufficiently to enable us to push the boats along with poles, our progress being occasionally facilitated by the rocky reefs, which kept the heavier masses from pressing down upon us. Much of the ice lay aground, in nine fathoms, but none of it rose more than five or six feet above the surface of the water. We estimated the velocity of the flood tide, off some of the rocky points, at three miles an hour, and at such places we had much trouble in endeavouring to keep the boats clear of the drifting ice. The circular motion which the pieces occasionally acquired was particularly difficult to guard against, and had we not depended on the tongues of ice, which, lying deep under water, prevented the upper parts of the floes to which they belonged from coming in contact, we should scarcely have ventured amongst them. We did not, however, entirely escape, for the Dolphin was caught between a floe and a piece that lay aground, and fairly raised out of the water by the pressure, which broke one of her timbers and several of her planks. We put ashore on a small island to repair the damage, and during our stay Mr. Kendall had a meridian observation in latitude 68° 36½' N. Another island, lying about two miles from the main land, was distinguished by the name of Aylmer Bourke Lambert, Esq., Vice-President of the Linnean Society. The sea water there was beautifully clear.
At half-past one, the Dolphin being again rendered sea-worthy, we prosecuted our voyage until five p.m., when the flood-tide set with such velocity round a rocky point, and brought so much ice with it, that we considered it prudent to put ashore. The violent eddies in the currents there, and the sudden approach and collision of the large masses of ice, reminded us forcibly of the poet's description of Scylla and Charybdis. The length of the day's voyage was twenty-one miles, and our encampment was situated in latitude 68° 32' N., longitude 113° 53' W. The temperature at nine p.m. was 60°.