th, passing the south of Baring Island, which was
called Cape Nelson. She then reached a channel with Baring Island on
the west, and another land on the east, to which the name of Prince
Albert's Land was given, when, on the 30th of September, she was fairly
frozen in. Prince Albert's Land was taken possession of on the 8th of
October, in the name of Her Most Gracious Majesty, by Captain McClure,
with a party of officers and men, who landed, and planted a staff with a
flag to it on the shore. On their return to the ship, they found that
the land and sea ice had separated, and they were alarmed with the
prospect of having to remain on shore during the whole of an Arctic
autumn night. Happily, their signals were at last seen, and a party,
with two of Halkett's inflatable boats, was sent to their assistance.
In consequence of the excessive roughness of the ice, no other boat
could have been got across. "By these means a large party were
relieved, who were without tents, clothing, fuel, provisions, or in any
way provided to withstand the severities of a Polar night, with the
thermometer eight degrees _minus_." We take the opportunity of advising
that all vessels should be provided with one or more of these admirable
contrivances. They may be of any size, from that in which one man alone
can sit, to one capable of carrying fifty people. One might always be
kept on deck, which could be launched in a moment should a man fall
overboard. By this means numberless lives might be saved.

Captain McClure, feeling assured that the ship was immovably fixed for
the winter, started with a sledge party on the 21st, to proceed to the
north-east, in the hopes of discovering Barrow's Straits; and, after
travelling for upwards of seventy miles, they had the intense
gratification, on the 26th of October, of pitching their tents on its
shores. The next morning, before sunrise, he and Mr Court ascended a
hill, 600 feet in height, whence they could command a view of forty or
fifty miles over the Straits, though the opposite shore of Melville
Island could not be discerned. They found, however, by their
observations, that Sir Edward Parry had very correctly marked the loom
of the land on which they stood; and that thus the long-vexed question
was solved, and that, whatever others might have done, or might be
doing, they had, at all events, found a watery way from the Pacific to
the Atlantic Oceans.

They reached the ship again on the 3