Parry, who had commanded the _Alexander_ in
Ross' expedition, was consulted, he pressed for further exploration
of the far north. And two expeditions were soon fitted out, one under
Parry and one under Franklin, who had already served with Flinders
in Australian exploration. Parry started off first with instructions
to explore Lancaster's Sound; failing to find a passage, to explore
Alderman Jones Sound, failing this again, Sir Thomas Smith's Sound.
If he succeeded in getting through to the Behring Strait, he was to
go to Kamtchatka and on to the Sandwich Islands. "You are to
understand," ran the instructions, "that the finding of a passage from
the Atlantic to the Pacific is the main object of this expedition."

On board the _Hecla_, a ship of three hundred and seventy-five tons,
with a hundred-and-eighty-ton brig, the _Griper_, accompanying, Parry
sailed away early in May 1819. The first week in July found him crossing
the Arctic Circle amid immense icebergs against which a heavy
southerly swell was violently agitated, "dashing the loose ice with
tremendous force, sometimes raising a white spray over them to the
height of more than a hundred feet, accompanied with a loud noise
exactly resembling the roar of distant thunder."

The entrance to Lancaster Sound was reached on 31st July, and, says
Parry: "It is more easy to imagine than to describe the almost
breathless anxiety which was now visible in every countenance, while,
as the breeze increased to a fresh gale, we ran quickly up the Sound."
Officers and men crowded to the masthead as the ships ran on and on
till they reached Barrow's Strait, so named by them after the Secretary
of the Admiralty.

"We now 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
accomplishment."

Sailing westward, they found a large island, which they named Melville
Island after the first Lord of the Admiralty, and a bay which still
bears the name of Hecla and Griper Bay. "Here," says Parry, "the ensigns
and pendants were hoisted, and it created in us no ordinary feelings
of pleasure to see the British flag waving, for the first time, in
those regions which had hitherto been considered beyond the limits
of the habitable world."

[Illustration: PARRY'S SHIPS, THE _HECLA_ AND _GRIPER_, IN WINTER
HARBOUR, DECEMBER 1819. From a drawing in Parr