a party by land. Captain Lyon undertook this service, accompanied by five persons, furnished with a tent and four days' provision. The ships were anchored to await his return a mile from the shore. The flood tide came out of this inlet, a circumstance that materially strengthened their hopes of success.
Captain Lyon first landed on an island, and then crossed a strait to a steep point. Thence proceeding northward to a hill, he found the strait continuous, and returned to the ships. On this short journey, he passed the remains of a great many Esquimaux habitations. The result of Captain Lyon's excursion was to convince all concerned, that a communication existed here between Frozen Strait and a sea to the northward and eastward of it, and Captain Parry determined to explore it as far as possible.
After drifting about some time in the ice, and more than once narrowly escaping shipwreck, measures were taken to survey this part of the Frozen strait; but little knowledge was gained by all their efforts. On the 1st of September, the prospect of getting northward, was by no means encouraging; and they were, from time to time, beset with ice, and drifted back. On the 3d, they found that after a laborious investigation, which had occupied a whole month, they had returned to nearly the same spot where they had been on the 6th of August, near Southampton Island.
On the 1st of October, rain fell, which immediately freezing, made the decks and ropes as smooth as glass. For several days the thermometer had been below the freezing point, and sometimes as low as 20 deg. at night, which change, together with the altered aspect of the land, and the rapid formation of young ice near the shores, gave notice of the approach of winter. The commencement of this dreary season in these regions may, indeed, be dated from the time when the earth no longer receives and radiates heat enough to melt the snow which falls upon it.
On the 8th the young ice on the surface began to give them warning that the navigation of those seas was nearly eneed for the season. When the young ice has acquired the thickness of half an inch, and is of considerable extent, a ship must be stopped by it, unless favored by a strong and fair wind; and even when making progress, is not under the control of the helmsman, depending mostly on the thickness of the ice on one bow or the other. Boats cannot be employed in such situations with much effect.
When to these difficulties were added the disadvantage of a temperature near zero, and twelve hours of daily darkness, Captain Parry became convinced that it was expedient to place the ships in the most secure situation that could be found, rather than run the risk of being permanently detached from the land by attempting to gain the continent. Accordingly a canal was sawed into a harbor on the south side of a small island, to which the name of Winter Island was given, and the ships were warped to their winter stations. Thus ended their operations for the season, after having explored a portion of coast six hundred miles in extent, one half of which belonged to the continent of America.
The arrangements for passing the winter comfortably were pretty much the same as those which had been made at Melville Island, with some improvements, suggested by former experience. The theatre was better fitted than before, and a school was established for the benefit of such of
