2d,) we had lost by drift no less than thirteen and a half miles, for we were now more than three miles to the southward of that observation, though we had certainly traveled between ten and eleven, due north in this interval! Again, we were but one mile to the north of our place at noon on the 21st, though we had estimated our distance made good at twenty-three miles." After encountering every species of fatigue and disheartening obstacles, in peril of their lives almost every hour, Parry now became convinced that it was hopeless to pursue the journey any further, and he could nt even reach the eighty-third parallel; for after thirty-five days of continuous and most fatiguing drudgery, with half their resources expended, and the middle of the season arrived, he found that the distance gained in their laborious traveling was lost by the drift and set of the ice with the southerly current, during the period of rest. After planting their ensigns and pennents on the 26th, and making it a day of rest, on the 2th, the return to the southward was commenced. Nothing particular occurred. Lieutenant Ross managed to bring down with his gun a fat she bear, which că ne to have a look at the boats, and after gormandizing on its flesh, an excess which may be excused consideri ng it was the first fresh meat they had tasted for ma y a day, some symptoms of indigestion manifested the nselves among the party.

'n the outward journey very little of animal life wat seen. A passing gull, a solitary rotge, two seals, and a couple of flies, were all that their eager eyes cou 1 detect. But on their return, these became more nun erous. On the 8th of August, seven or eight narwha s were seen, and not less than 200 rotges, a flock of tl ese little birds occurring in every hole of water. On the 11th, in latitude 81° 30', the sea was found crow led with shrimps and other sea insects, on which numerous birds were feeding. On this day they took their last meal on the ice, being fifty miles distant from Table Island, having accomplished in fifteen days what had taken them thirty-three to effect on their outward

journey. On the 12th, they arrived at this island. The bears had walked off with the relay of bread which had been deposited there. To an inlet lying off Table Island, and the most northern known land upon the globe, Parry gave the name of Ross, for "no individual," he observes, "could have exerted himself more strenuously to rob it of this distinction."

Putting to sea again, a storm obliged the boats to bear up for Walden Island. "Every thing belonging to us (says Captain Parry) was now completely drenched by the spray and snow; we had been fifty-six hours without rest, and forty-eight at work in the boats, so that by the time they were unloaded we had barely strength left to haul them up on the rocks. However, by dint of great exertion, we managed to get the boats above the surf; after which a hot supper, a blazing fire of drift wood, and a few hours quiet rest, restored

us."

They finally reached the ship on the 21st of August, after sixty-one days' absence.

"The distance traversed during this excursion was 569 geographical miles; but allowing for the times we had to return for our baggage, during the greater part of the journey over the ice, we estimated our actual traveling at 978 geographical, or 1127 statute miles. Considering our constant exposure to wet, cold, and fatigue, our stockings having generally been drenched in snow-water for twelve hours out of every twentyfour, I had great reason to be thankful for the excellent health in which, upon the whole, we reached the ship. There is little doubt that we had all become in a certain degree gradually weaker for some time past; but only three men of our party now required medical care two of them with badly swelled legs and general de bility, and the other from a bruise, but even these three returned to their duty in a short time."

In a letter from Sir W. E. Parry to Sir John Barrow, dated November 25, 1845, he thus suggests some improvements on his old plan of proceedings :

"It is evident (he says) that the causes of failure in

our former attempt, in the year 1827, were principally two: first, and chiefly, the broken, rugged, and soft state of the ice over which we traveled; and secondly, the drifting of the whole body of ice in a southerly direction.

'My amended plan is, to go out with a single ship to Spitzbergen, just as we did in the Hecla, but not so early in the season; the object for that year being merely to find secure winter quarters as far north as possible. For this purpose it would only be necessary to reach Hakluyt's Headland by the end of June, which would afford ample leisure for examining the more northern lands, especially about the Seven Islands, where, in all probability, a secure nook might be found for the ship, and a starting point for the proposed expedition, some forty or fifty miles in advance of the point where the Hecla was before laid up. The winter might be usefully employed in various preparations for the journey, as well as in magnetic, astronomical, and meteorological observations, of high interest in that latitude. I propose that the expedition should leave the ship in the course of the month of April, when the ice would present one hard and unbroken surface, over which, as I confidently believe, it would not be difficult to make good thirty miles per day, without any exposure to wet, and probably without snow blindness. At this season, too, the ice would probably be stationary, and thus the two great difficulties which we formerly had to encounter would be entirely obviated. It might form a part of the plan to push out supplies previously, to the distance of 100 miles, to be taken up on the way, so as to commence the journey comparatively light; and as the intention would be to complete the enterprise in the course of the month of May, before any disruption of the ice, or any material softening of the surface had taken place, similar supplies might be sent out to the same distance, to meet the party on their return.'

وو

The late Sir John Barrow, in his last work, commenting on this, says, "With all deference to so dis

tinguished a sea officer, in possession of so much experience as Sir Edward Parry, there are others who express dislike of such a plan; and it is not improbable that many will be disposed to come to the conclusion, that so long as the Greenland Seas are hampered with ice, so long as floes, and hummocks, and heavy masses, continue to be formed, so long as a determined southerly current prevails, so long will any attempt to carry out the plan in question, in like manner fail. No laborious drudgery will ever be able to conquer the opposing progress of the current and the ice. Besides, it can hardly be doubted, this gallant officer will admit, on further consideration, that this unusual kind of disgusting and unscamanlike labor, is not precisely such as would be relished by the men; and, it may be said, is not exactly fitted for a British man-of-war's-man ; moreover, that it required his own all-powerful example to make it even tolerable." Sir John therefore suggested a somewhat different plan. He recommended that two small ships should be sent in the early spring along the western coast of Spitzbergen, where usually no impediment exists, as far up as 80°. They should take every opportunity of proceeding directly to the north, where, in about 82°, Parry has told us the large floes had disappeared, and the sea was found to be loaded only with loose, disconnected, small masses of ice, through which ships would find no difficulty in sailing, though totally unfit for boats dragging; and as this loose ice was drifting to the southward, he further says, that before the middle of August a ship might have sailed up to the latitude of 82°, almost without touching a piece of ice. It is not then unreasonable to expect that beyond that parallel, even as far as the pole itself, the sea would be free of ice, during the six summer months of perpetual sun, through each of the twenty-four hours; which, with the aid of the current, would, in all probability, destroy and dissipate the polar ice.

The distance from Hakluyt's Headland to the pole is 600 geographical miles. Granting the ships to make

only twenty miles in twenty-four hours, (on the supposition of much sailing ice to go through,) even in that case it would require but a nonth to enable the explorer to put his foot on the pivot or point of the axis on which the globe of the earth turns, remain there a month, if necessary, to obtain the sought-for information, and then, with a southerly current, a fortnight, probably less, would bring him back to Spitzbergen.

In a notice in the Quarterly Review of this, one of the most singular and perilous journeys of its kind ever undertaken, except perhaps that of Baron Wrangell upon a similar enterprise to the northward of Behring's Straits, it is observed,-"Let any one conceive for a moment the situation of two open boats, laden with seventy days' provisions and clothing for twentyeight men, in the midst of a sea covered nearly with detached masses and floes of ice, over which these boats were to be dragged, sometimes up one side of a rugged mass, and down the other, sometimes across the lanes of water that separate them, frequently over a surface covered with deep snow, or through pools of water. Let him bear in mind, that the men had little or no chance of any other supply of provisions than that which they carried with them, calculated as just sufficient to sustain life, and consider what their situation would have been in the event, by no means an improbable one, of losing any part of their scanty stock. Let any one try to imagine to himself a situation of this kind, and he will still have but a faint idea of the exertions which the men under Captain Parry had to make, and the sufferings and privations they had to undergo."

Captain Parry having thus completed his fifth voyage into the arctic regions, in four of which he commanded, and was second in the other, it may here be desirable to give a recapitulation of his services.

In 1818 he was appointed Lieutenant, commanding the Alexander, hired ship, as second officer with his uncle, Commander John Ross. In 1819, still as Lieu* Barrow's Voyages of Discovery, p. 316.