On the 7th of June, Captain Lyon, with a party of men, set off across the Melville Peninsula, to endeavour to get a sight of the western sea, of which they had received descriptive accounts from the natives, but owing to the difficulties of travelling, and the ranges of mountains they met with, they returned unsuccessful, after being out twenty days. Another inland trip of a fortnight followed. On the 1st of August, the Hecla was reported ready for sea. Some symptoms of scurvy having again made their appearance in the ships, and the surgeons reporting that it would not be prudent to continue longer, Captain Parry reluctantly determined to proceed home with both ships. After being 319 days in their winter quarters, the ships got away on the 9th of August. A conspicuous landmark, with despatches, was set up on the mainland for the information of Franklin, should he reach this quarter. On reaching Winter Island, and visiting their last year's garden, radishes, mustard and cress, and onions were brought off, which had survived the winter and were still alive, seventeen months from the time they were planted, a very remarkable proof of their having been preserved by the warm covering of snow. The ships, during the whole of this passage, were driven by the current more than three degrees, entirely at the mercy of the ice, being carried into every bight, and swept over each point, without the power of helping themselves. On the 1st of September, they were driven up Lyon Inlet, where they were confined high up till the 6th, when a breeze sprung up, which took them down to within three miles of Winter Island; still it was not until the 12th that they got thoroughly clear of the indraught. The danger and suspense of these twelve days were horrible, and Lyon justly observes that he would prefer being frozen up during another eleven months' winter, to again passing so anxious a period of time. "Ten of the twelve nights were passed on deck, in expectation, each tide, of some decided change in our affairs, either by being left on the rocks, or grounding in such shoal water, that the whole body of the ice must have slid over us. But, as that good old seaman Baffin expresses himself, God, who is greater than either ice or tide, always delivered us!'" For thirty-five days the ships had been beset, and in that period had driven with the ice above 300 miles without any exertion on their part, and also without a possibility of extricating themselves. On the 23rd of September they once more got into the swell of the Atlantic, and on the 10th of October arrived at Lerwick, in Shetland. CLAVERING'S VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN AND GREEN- IN 1823, Capt. Sabine, R.A., who had been for some time engaged in magnetic observations, and also in experiments to determine the configuration of the earth, by means of pendulum vibrations in different latitudes, having perfected his observations at different points, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle, suggested to the Royal Society, through Sir Humphry Davy, the importance of extending similar experiments into higher latitudes towards the Pole. Accordingly, the Government placed at his disposal H.M.S. Griper, 120 tons, Commander Clavering, which was to convey him to Spitzbergen, and thence to the east coast of Greenland. The Griper sailed from the Nore on the 11th of May, and proceeded to Hammerfest, or Whale Island, near the North Cape in Norway, which she reached on the 4th of June, and Capt. Sabine having finished his shore observations by the 23rd, the vessel set sail for Spitzbergen. She fell in with ice off Cherry Island, in lat. 75° 5', on the 27th, and on the 30th disembarked the tents and instruments on one of the small islands round Hakluyt's Headland, near the eightieth parallel. Capt. Clavering, meanwhile, sailed in the Griper due north, and reached the latitude of 80° 20', where being stopped by close packed ice, he was obliged to return. On the 24th of July they again put to sea, directing their course for the highest known point of the eastern coast of Greenland. They met with many fields of ice, and made the land, which had a most miserable desolate appearance, at a point which was named Cape Borlase Warren. Two islands were discovered, and as Capt. Sabine here landed and carried on his observations, they were called Pendulum Islands. From an island situate in lat. 75° 12', to which he gave the name of Shannon Island, Clavering saw high land, stretching due north as far as lat. 76°. On the 16th of August, Clavering landed with a party of three officers and sixteen men on the mainland, to examine the shores. The temperature did not sink below 23°, and they slept for nearly a fortnight they were on shore with only a boat-cloak and blanket for a covering, without feel ing any inconvenience from the cold. A tribe of twelve Esquimaux was met with here. They reached in their journey a magnificent inlet, about fifty miles in circumference, which was supposed to be the same which Gale Hamkes discovered in 1654, and which bears his name. The mountains round its sides were 4000 to 5000 feet high. On the 29th of August, they returned on board, and having embarked the tents and instruments, the ship again set sail on the 31st, keeping the coast in view to Cape Parry, lat. 7210. The cliffs were observed to be several thousand feet high. On the 13th of September, as the ice in shore began to get very troublesome, the ship stood out to sea, and after encountering a very heavy gale, which drove them with great fury to the southward, and it not being thought prudent to make for Iceland, a station in about the same latitude on the Norway coast was chosen instead by Capt. Sabine. They made the land about the latitude of Christiansound. On the 1st of October the Griper struck hard on a sunken rock, but got off undamaged. On the 6th they anchored in Drontheim Fiord, where they were received with much kindness and hospitality, and after the necessary observations had been completed the ship proceeded homewards, and reached Deptford on the 19th of December, 1823. LYON'S VOYAGE IN THE GRIPER. IN 1824 three expeditions were ordered out, to carry on simultaneous operations in Arctic discovery. To Capt. Lyon was committed the task of examining and completing the survey of the Melville Peninsula, the adjoining straits, and the shores of Arctic America, if possible as far as Franklin's turning point. Capt. Lyon was therefore gazetted to the Griper gun-brig, which had taken out Capt. Sabine to Spitzbergen in the previous year. The following officers and crew were also appointed to her : Griper. Captain-G. F. Lyon. Lieutenants-P. Manico and F. Harding. Purser-J. Evans. Assistant-Surgeon-W. Leyson. Midshipman J. Tom. 34 Petty officers, seamen, &c. It was not till the 20th of June that the Griper got away from England, being a full month later than the usual period of departure, and the vessel was at the best but an old tub in her sailing properties. A small tender, called the Snap, was ordered to accompany her with stores as far as the ice, and having been relieved of her supplies, she was sent home on reaching Hudson's Straits. The Griper made but slow progress in her deeply laden state, her crowded decks being continually swept by heavy seas, and it was not until the end of August that she rounded the southern head of Southampton Island, and stood up towards Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome. On reaching the entrance of this channel they encountered a terrific gale, which for a long time threatened the destruction of both ship and crew. Drifting with this, they brought up the ship with four anchors, in a bay with five fathoms and a half water, in the momentary expectation that with the ebb tide the ship would take the ground, as the sea broke fearfully on a low sandy beach just astern, and had the anchors parted nothing could have saved the vessel. Neither commander nor crew had been in bed for three nights, and although little hope was entertained of surviving the gale, and no boat could live in such a sea, the officers and crew performed their several duties with their accustomed coolness. Each man was ordered to put on his warmest clothing, and to take charge of some useful instrument. The scene is best described in the words of the gallant commander : "Each, therefore, brought his bag on deck, and dressed himself; and in the fine athletic forms which stood exposed before me, I did not see one muscle quiver, nor the slightest sign of alarm. Prayers were read, and they then all sat down in groups, sheltered from the wash of the sea by whatever they could find, and some endeavoured to obtain a little sleep. Never perhaps was witnessed a finer scene than on the deck of my little ship, when all hope of life had left us. Noble as the character of the British sailor is always allowed to be in cases of danger, yet I did not believe it to be possible that among forty-one persons not one repining word should have been uttered. Each was at peace with his neighbour and all the world; and I am firmly persuaded that the resignation which was then shown to the will of the Almighty, was the means of obtaining His mercy. God was merciful to us, and the tide, almost miraculously, fell no lower." The appropriate name of the Bay of God's Mercy has been given to this spot on the charts by Capt. Lyon. Proceeding onward up the Welcome, they encountered, about a fortnight later, another fearful storm. On the 12th of September, when off the entrance of Wager Inlet, it blew so hard for two days, that on the 13th the ship was driven from her anchors, and carried away by the fury of the gale, with every prospect of being momentarily dashed to pieces against any hidden rock; but the same good Providence which had so recently befriended them, again stood their protector. On consulting with his officers, it was unanimously resolved, that in the crippled state of the ship, without any anchor, and with her compasses worse than useless, it would be madness to continue the voyage, and the ship's course was therefore shaped for England. I may observe, that the old Griper is now laid up as a hulk in Chichester Harbour, furnishing a residence and depôt for the coast guard station. PARRY'S THIRD VOYAGE. In the spring of 1824 the Admiralty determined to give Capt. Parry another opportunity of carrying out the great problem which had so long been sought after, of a northwest passage to the Pacific, and so generally esteemed was this gallant commander that he had but to hoist his pennant, when fearless of all danger, and in a noble spirit of emulation, his former associates rallied around him. The same two ships were employed as before, but Parry now selected the Hecla for his pennant. The staff of officers and men was as follows: Captain-W. E. Parry. Hecla. Lieutenants—J. L. Wynn, Joseph Sherer, and Henry Foster. Surgeon-Samuel Neill, M.D. Purser W. H. Hooper. Midshipmen-J. Brunton, F. R. M. Crozier, C. Richards, and H. N. Head. Greenland Pilots-J. Allison, master; and G. Champion, mate. 49 Petty Officers, Seamen, and Marines. Total complement, 62. |