appearances, we were willing to attribute to an open sea in the desired direction. More than forty black whales were seen during the day.

We made little way on the 3d, but being favoured at length by the easterly breeze which was bringing up the Griper, and for which we had long been looking with much impatience, a crowd of sail was set to carry us with all rapidity to the westward. It is more easy to imagine than to describe the almost breathless anxiety which was now visible in every countenance, while, as the breeze continued to a fresh gale, we ran quickly up the sound. The mastheads were crowded by the officers and men during the whole afternoon; and an unconcerned observer, if any could have been unconcerned on such an occasion, would have been amused by the eagerness with which the various reports from the crow's-nest were received; all, however, hitherto favourable to our most sanguine hopes.

Our course was nearly due west, and the wind still continuing to freshen, took us in a few hours nearly out of sight of the Griper. The only ice which we met with consisted of a few large bergs very much washed by the sea; and the weather being remarkably clear, so as to enable us to run with perfect safety, we were by midnight, in a great measure, relieved from our anxiety respecting the supposed continuity of land at the bottom of this magnificent inlet, having reached the longitude of 83° 12', where the two shores are still above thirteen leagues apart, without the slightest appearance of any land to the westward of us for four or five points of the compass.

Having made the ship snug, so as to be in readiness to round to should the land be seen ahead, and the Griper having come up within a few miles of us, we again bore up at one A.M., the 4th. At half past three, Lieutenant Beechey, who had relieved me on deck, discovered from the crow's-nest a reef of rocks, in-shore of us to the northward, on which the sea was breaking. The cliffs on this part of the coast present a singular appearance, being stratified horizontally, and having a number of regular projecting masses of rock, broad at the bottom, and coming to a point at the top, resembling so many buttresses, raised by art at equal intervals.

After lying-to for an hour, we again bore up to the westward, and soon after discovered a cape, afterward named by Captain Sabine, CAPE FELLFOOT, which appeared to form the termination of this coast; and as the haze, which still prevailed to the south, prevented our seeing any land in that quarter, and the sea was literally as free from ice as any part of the Atlantic, we began to flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar Sea, and some of the most sanguine among us had even calculated the bearing and distance of Icy Cape, as a matter of no very difficult or improbable accomplishment. This pleasing prospect was rendered the more flattering by the sea having, as we thought, regained the usual oceanic colour, and by a long swell which was rolling in from the southward and eastward. At six P.M., however, land was reported to be seen ahead. The vexation and anxiety produced on every countenance by such a report were but too visible, until, on a nearer approach, it was found to be only an island, of no very large extent, and that, on each side of it, the horizon still appeared clear for several points of the compass. At eight P.M. we came to some ice of no great breadth or thickness, extending several miles in a direction nearly parallel to our course; and as we could see clear water over it to the southward, I was for some time in the hope that it would prove a detached stream, from which no obstruction to our progress westerly was to be apprehended. At twenty minutes past ten, however, the weather having become hazy and the wind light, we perceived that the ice, along which we had been sailing for the last two hours, was joined, at the distance of half a mile to the westward of us, to a compact and impenetrable body of floes, which lay across the whole breadth of the strait, formed by the island and the western point of Maxwell Bay. We hauled our wind to the northward, just in time to avoid being embayed in the ice, on the outer edge of which a considerable surf, the effect of the late gale, was then rolling.

While the calm and thick weather lasted, a number of the officers and men amused themselves in the boats, in endeavouring to kill some of the white whales which were swimming about the ships in great numbers; but the animals were so wary, that they would scarcely suffer the boats to approach them within thirty or forty yards without diving. Mr. Fisher described them to be generally from eighteen to twenty feet in length; and he stated that he had several times heard them emit a shrill, ringing sound, not unlike that of musical glasses when badly played; This sound, he farther observed, was most distinctly heard when they happened to swim directly beneath the boat, even when they were several feet under water, and ceased altogether on their coming to the surface. We saw also, for the first time, one or two shoals of narwhals, called by the sailors sea-unicorns.

A steady breeze springing up from the W.N.W. in the afternoon, the ships stood to the northward till we had distinctly made out that no passage to the westward could at present be found between the ice and the land. The weather having become clear about this time, we perceived that there was a large open space to the southward, where no land was visible; and for this opening, over which there was a dark water-sky, our course was now directed.

Since the time when we first entered Sir James Lancaster's Sound, the sluggishness of the compasses, as well as the amount of their irregularity produced by the attraction of the ship's iron, had been found very rapidly, though uniformly, to increase as we proceeded to the westward; so much, indeed, that, for the last two days, we had been under the necessity of giving up altogether the usual observations for determining the variation of the needle on board the ships. This irregularity became more and more obvious as we now advanced to the southward, which rendered it not improbable that we were making a very near approach to the magnetic pole. For the purposes of navigation, therefore, the compasses were from this time no longer consulted; and in a few days afterward, the binnacles were removed as useless lumber from the deck to the carpenter's storeroom, where they remained during the rest of the season.

A dark sky to the southwest had given us hopes of finding a westerly passage to the south of the ice along which we were now sailing; more especially as the inlet began to widen considerably as we advanced in that direction: but at three A.M. on the morning of the 8th, we perceived that the ice ran close in with a point of land bearing S.b.E. from us, which appeared to form the southern extremity of the eastern shore.

With the increasing width of the inlet we had flattered ourselves with increasing hopes; but we soon experienced the mortification of disappointment. The prospect from the crow's-nest began to assume a very unpromising appearance, the whole of the western horizon, from north round to S.b.E., being completely covered with ice, consisting of heavy and extensive floes, beyond which no indication of water was visible; instead of which there was a bright and dazzling iceblink extending from shore to shore. The western coast of the inlet, however, trended much more to the westward than before, and no land was visible to the southwest, though the horizon was so clear in that quarter, that, if any had existed of moderate height, it might have been easily seen at this time at the distance of ten or twelve leagues. From these circumstances, the impression received at the time was, that the land, both on the eastern and western side of this inlet, would be one day found to consist of islands.

A breeze sprung up from the