as not, at some time, so foggy as to hide every object
more distant than four or five miles. The day that I visited Mount
Conybeare, and that spent on Flaxman Island, form the only exceptions to
this remark. A question, therefore, suggests itself:--Whence arises this
difference? which, I presume, can be best answered by reference to the
greater accumulation of ice on this coast, and to the low and very
swampy nature of the land. There is a constant exhalation of moisture
from the ice and swamps during the summer months, which is, perhaps,
prevented from being carried off by the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains,
and, therefore, becomes condensed into a fog. The coast to the eastward
of the Coppermine River is high and dry, and far less encumbered with
ice.

Some deer appearing near the encampment, a party was despatched in
pursuit of them; but having been previously fired at by Augustus, they
proved too wary. The exertions of the men were, however, rewarded by the
capture of some geese and ducks. The whole of the vegetation had now
assumed the autumnal tint.

[Sidenote: Sunday, 13th.] There was not the least abatement in the wind,
or change in the murky atmosphere, throughout the 13th. The party
assembled at divine service, and afterwards amused themselves as they
could in their tents, which were now so saturated with wet as to be very
comfortless abodes; and in order to keep ourselves tolerably warm we
were obliged to cover the feet with blankets; our protracted stay
having caused such a great expenditure of the drift-wood, that we found
it necessary to be frugal in its use, and only to light the fire when we
wanted to cook the meals. The nights, too, we regretted to find, were
lengthening very fast; so that from ten P.M. to two A.M., there was too
little light for proceeding in any unknown tract.

[Sidenote: Monday, 14th.] The wind this day was moderate, but the fog
was more dense, and very wet. Tired, however, of the confinement of the
tent, most of the party wandered out in search of amusement, though we
could not see one hundred yards; and some partridges, ducks, and geese,
were shot.

[Sidenote: Tuesday, 15th.] The fog was dispersed at seven in the morning
of the 15th, by a north-east gale, which created too great a surf on the
beach for us to launch the boats, and the fog returned in the evening.
The temperature fell to 35 degrees, and in the course of the night ice
was formed on the small pools near the encamp