been with him on his first Arctic expedition, and had sub. sequently accompanied Parry in all his voyages. The other officers of the vessel were-Mr. Wm. Thom, purser; Mr. George M'Diarmid, surgeon; Thomas Blanky, Thos. Abernethy, and George Taylor, as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd mates; Alexander Brunton and Allan Macinnes as 1st and 2nd engineers; and nineteen petty officers and seamen; making a complement in all of 28 men.

The Admiralty furnished towards the purposes of the expedition a decked boat of sixteen tons, called the Krusenstern, and two boats which had been used by Franklin, with a stock of books and instruments.

The vessel being reported ready for sea was visited and examined by the late King of the French, the Lords of the Admiralty, and other parties taking an interest in the expedition, and set sail from Woolwich on the 23rd of May, 1829. For all practical purposes the steam machinery, on which the commander had greatly relied, was found on trial utterly useless.

Having received much damage to her spars, in a severe gale, the ship put in to the Danish settlement of Holsteinberg, on the Greenland coast, to refit, and sailed again to the northward on the 26th of June. They found a clear sea, and even in the middle of Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Strait perceived no traces of ice or snow, except what appeared on the lofty summits of some of the mountains. The thermometer stood at 40°, and the weather was so mild that the officers dined in the cabin without a fire, with the skylight partially open. On the 10th of August they passed Cape York, and thence crossed over into Regent Inlet, making the western coast between Seppings' and Elwin Bay on the 16th.

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They here fell in with those formidable streams, packs, and floating bergs of ice which had offered such obstructions to Parry's ships. From their proximity to the magnetic pole, their compasses became useless as they proceeded southward. On the 13th they reached the spot where the Fury was abandoned, but no remnants of the vessel were to be seen. her sails, stores, and provisions, on land, were, however, found; the hermetically-sealed tin canisters having kept the provisions from the attacks of bears; and the flour, bread, wine, spirits, sugar, &c., proved as good, after being here four years, as on the first day they were packed. This store formed a very seasonable addition, which was freely made available, and after increasing their stock to two years and ten months' supply, they still left

a large quantity for the wants of any future explorers. On the 15th, crossing Cresswell Bay, they reached Cape Garry, the farthest point which had been seen by Parry. They were here much inconvenienced and delayed by fogs and floating ice. While mountains of ice were tossing around them on every side, they were often forced to seek safety by mooring themselves to these formidable masses, and drifting with them, sometimes forward, sometimes backward. In this manner on one occasion no less than nineteen miles were lost in a few hours; at other times they underwent frequent and severe shocks, yet escaped any serious damage.

Captain Ross draws a lively picture of what a vessel endures in sailing among these moving hills. He reminds the reader that ice is stone, as solid as if it were granite; and he bids him "imagine these mountains hurled through a narrow strait by a rapid tide, meeting with the noise of thunder, breaking from each other's precipices huge frag ments, or rending each other asunder, till, losing their former equilibrium, they fall over headlong, lifting the sea around in breakers, and whirling it in eddies. There is not a moment in which it can be conjectured what will happen in the next; there is not one which may not be the last. The attention is troubled to fix on anything amid such confusion; still must it be alive, that it may seize on the single moment of help or escape which may occur. Yet with all this, and it is the hardest task of all, there is nothing to be acted,-no effort to be made,-he must be patient, as if he were unconcerned or careless, waiting, as he best can, for the fate, be it what it may, which he cannot influence or avoid."

Proceeding southward, Ross found Brentford Bay, about thirty miles beyond Cape Garry, to be of considerable extent, with some fine harbours. Landing here, the British colours were unfurled, and the coast, named after ⚫ the promoter of the expedition, was taken possession of in the name of the king. Extensive and commodious harbours, named Ports Logan, Elizabeth, and Eclipse, were discovered, and a large bay, which was called Mary Jones Bay. By the end of September, the ship had examined 300 miles of undiscovered coast. The winter now set in with severity, huge masses of ice began to close around them, the thermometer sank many degrees below freezing point, and snow fell very thick. By sawing through the ice, the vessel was got into a secure position to pass the winter, in a station which is now named on the maps Felix Harbour. The machinery of the steam-engine was done

away with, the vessel housed, and every measure that could add to the comfort of the crew adopted. They had abundance of fuel, and provisions that might easily be extended to three years.

On the 9th of January, 1831, they were visited by a large tribe of Esquimaux, who were better dressed and cleaner than those more to the northward. They dis played an intimate acquaintance with the situation and bearings of the country over which they had travelled, and two of them drew a very fair sketch of the neighbouring coasts, with which they were familiar; this was revised and corrected by a learned lady named Teriksin, the females seeming, from this and former instances, to have a clear knowledge of the hydrography and geography of the continent, bays, straits, and rivers which they had once traversed.

On the 5th of April, Commander Ross, with Mr. Blanky, the chief mate, and two Esquimaux guides, set out to explore a strait which was reported as lying to the westward, and which it was hoped might lead to the western sea. After a tedious and arduous journey, they arrived, on the third day, at a bay facing to the westward, and discovered, further inland, an extensive lake, called by the natives Nie-tyel-le, whence a broad river flowed into the bay. Their guides informed them, however, there was no prospect of a water communication south of their present position. Capt. Ross then traced the coast fifty or sixty miles further south.

Several journeys were also made by Commander Ross, both inland and along the bays and inlets. On the 1st of May, from the top of a high hill, he observed a large inlet which seemed to lead to the western sea. In order to satisfy himself on this point, he set out again on the 17th of May, with provisions for three weeks, eight dogs, and three companions. Having crossed the great middle lake of the isthmus, he reached his former station, and thence ⚫ traced an inlet which was found to be the mouth of a river named by them Garry. From the high hill they observed a chain of lakes leading almost to Thom's Bay, the Victory's station in Felix Harbour. Proceeding northwest along the coast, they crossed the frozen surface of the strait which has since been named after Sir James Ross, and came to a large island which was called Matty; keeping along its northern shore, and passing over a narrow strait, which they named after Wellington, they found themselves on what was considered to be the main

land, but which the more recent discoveries of Simpson have shown to be an island, and which now bears the name of King William's Land. Still journeying onward, with difficulties continually increasing, from heavy toil and severe privation, the dogs became exhausted with fatigue, and a burden rather than an aid to the travellers.

One of their greatest embarrassments was how to distinguish between land and sea. "When all is ice, and all one dazzling mass of white-when the surface of the sea itself is tossed up and fixed into rocks, while the land is on the contrary very often flat, it is not always so easy a problem as it might seem on a superficial view, to determine a fact which appears in words to be extremely simple." Although their provisions began to fall short, and the party were nearly worn out, Commander Ross was most desirous of making as much western discovery as possible; therefore, depositing everything that could be dispensed with, he pushed on, on the 28th, with only four days' provisions, and reached Cape Felix, the most northern point of this island, on the following day. The coast here took a south-west direction, and there was an unbounded expanse of ocean in view. The next morning, after having travelled twenty miles farther, they reached a point, which Ross called Point Victory, situated in lat. 64° 46′ 19′′ long. 98° 32′ 49′′, while to the most distant one in view, estimated to be in long. 99° 17′ 58′′, he gave the name of Cape Franklin. However loath to turn back, yet prudence compelled them to do so, for as they had only ten days' short allowance of food, and more than 200 miles to traverse, there could not be a moment's hesitation in adopting this step. A high cairn of stones was erected before leaving, in which was deposited a narrative of their proceedings.

The party endured much fatigue and suffering on their return journey; of the eight dogs only two survived, and the travellers in a most exhausted state arrived in the neigh bourhood of the large lakes on the 8th of June, where they fortunately fell in with a tribe of natives, who received them hospitably, and supplied them plentifully with fish, so that after a day's rest they resumed their journey, and reached the ship on the 13th. Capt. Ross in the meanwhile had made a partial survey of the Isthmus, and discovered another large lake, which he named after Lady Melville.

After eleven months' imprisonment, their little ship once more floated buoyant on the waves, having been released from her icy barrier on the 17th of September,

but for the next few days made but little progress, being beaten about among the icebergs, and driven hither and thither by the currents.

A change in the weather, however, took place, and on the 23rd they were once more frozen in, the sea in a week after exhibiting one clear unbroken surface. All October was passed in cutting through the ice into a more secure locality, and another dreary winter having set in, it became necessary to reduce the allowance of provisions. This winter was one of unparalleled severity, the thermometer falling 92° below freezing point. During the ensuing spring a variety of exploratory journeys were carried on, and in one of these Commander Ross succeeded in planting the British flag on the North Magnetic Pole. The position which had been usually assigned to this interesting spot by the learned of Europe, was lat. 70° N., and long. 98° 30' W.; but Ross, by careful observations, determined it to lie in lat. 70° 5' 17" N., and long. 96° 46′ 45′′ W., to the southward of Cape Nikolai, on the western shore of Boothia. But it has since been found that the centre of magnetic intensity is a moveable point revolving within the frigid zone.

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The place of the observatory," Ross remarks, was as near to the magnetic pole as the limited means which I possessed enabled me to determine. The amount of the dip, as indicated by my dipping-needle, was 89° 59', being thus within one minute of the vertical; while the prox imity at least of this pole, if not its actual existence where we stood, was further confirmed by the action, or rather by the total inaction, of the several horizontal needles then in my possession."

Parry's observations placed it eleven minutes distant only from the site determined by Ross.

As soon," continues Ross, "" as I had satisfied my own mind on the subject, I made known to the party this gratifying result of all our joint labours; and it was then that, amidst mutual congratulations, we fixed the British flag on the spot, and took possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain and King William IV. We had abundance of materials for building in the fragments of limestone that covered the beach, and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude, under which we buried a canister containing a record of the interesting fact, only regretting that we had not the means of constructing a pyramid of more importance, and of strength sufficient to withstand the assaults of time and of the Esquimaux. Had