northward I bestowed the name of our most gracious sovereign Queen Victoria. Its eastern visible extremity I called Cape Pelly, in compliment to the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company; and the promontory where we encamped Cape Alexander, after an only brother, who would give his right-hand to be the sharer of my journeys.
Cape Alexander is a rounded, rocky ridge, covered with loose stones,[1] four miles in width, and two or three hundred feet high. Its western part is situated in lat. 68° 56′ N., long. 106° 40′ W. The rise and fall of the tide here was little short of three feet, being the greatest yet observed by us in the Arctic seas. The weather was calm, and the tide falling, when we halted. A considerable quantity of loose ice passed to the westward, and floated back again as the water rose in the morning, affording a seeming presumption that the flood came from that quarter. A solitary deer bounded up the ascent, and along the shore ran a path beaten by those animals. Sinclair wounded one of a small herd of musk-cattle that were grazing on the banks of a lake behind the cape,
- ↑ The prevailing surface rock was a conglomerate, while the sides of the ravines hollowed out by brooks were of red sandstone.
