the Melville Range, visible from its
mouth, received the name of the venerable geographer Major Rennel.

We passed this day through heavier and more crowded streams of ice than
any we had previously seen on the voyage. The navigation amongst it was
tedious and difficult, and just before we put ashore much motion was
imparted to it by a fresh south-west wind. The temperature during the
day varied from 35 degrees to 50 degrees. The mouth of Roscoe River lies
in latitude 69 degrees 41 minutes N., longitude 121 degrees 2 minutes
W., and is forty-eight miles distant from Cape Lyon.

[Sidenote: Saturday, 29th.] We embarked on the 29th, with a fair wind;
but the ice lay so close, that we could not venture to set more than a
reefed foresail, and were ultimately obliged to lower the sail entirely,
and to find a passage through ice with oars and poles. The pieces of ice
were of sufficient magnitude to deserve the name of floes, and were
sometimes several fathoms thick. They were all moving before the breeze,
which caused them to arrange themselves in the form of streams parallel
to the coast, and, consequently, left lanes of open water in the
direction of our course. These lanes, however, were continually changing
their form; and, on several occasions, when we had been tempted by the
favourable appearance of a piece of open water to venture from the
coast, we had great difficulty in extricating ourselves from the ice
which closed around us. The thickness of the ice led me to conclude that
the sea had not been long open in this quarter; and I observed that the
vegetation was later on this part of the coast than on the western side
of Cape Parry.

For the first twelve miles after leaving our encampment, the coast was
low and sandy; the Melville Range still forming the back-ground, at the
distance of four or five miles from the sea. The low beaches were
terminated by a rocky headland, which obtained from us the name of De
Witt Clinton, as a testimony of our sense of the urbanity and love of
science which had prompted his Excellency the Governor of the state of
New York[10] to show so much attention to the members of the Expedition,
in their passage through his government. Some miles beyond Point De Witt
Clinton we came to a steep cliff, where the ice was so closely packed
that we could not force a passage. The cargoes were, therefore, carried
along the foot of the cliff, and the boats launched for a few yards over
a piece of ice.