that most distinguished philosopher
Dr. Hyde Wollaston. The main shore had a direction nearly parallel to
Wollaston Land, its most distant point in sight, which I estimated to be
fifteen miles off, bearing S. 61 degrees E. On the strait, separating
the two shores, I bestowed the names of our excellent little boats, the
Dolphin and Union. It varies in width from twelve to twenty miles, and
to the eastward seemed to contain merely detached streams of ice, not
likely to obstruct the progress of a vessel; but to the westward lay the
closely packed ice, filling South's Bay, and extending to seaward. The
ice did not, however, entirely close the strait, for I could discern
lanes of open water towards Wollaston Land. The packed ice which we had
seen lining the coast between Point Clifton and Cape Bexley, may be
perhaps considered as an illustration of the remark made by Captain
Parry, that the western sides of seas and inlets in those latitudes are
more encumbered with ice than the opposite sides; and it is very
probable that a ship might have found a passage by keeping along
Wollaston Land, an opinion which the appearance of the ice as seen from
Cape Bexley, tended to confirm. The latitude of our encampment was 68
degrees 58 minutes N., and its longitude 115 degrees 47 minutes W.; it
was within ten miles of our encampment of the preceding night, although
we had travelled twenty-five miles in the course of the day.

[Sidenote: Saturday, 5th.] The party embarked on the 5th, at the usual
hour in the morning, with their spirits pleasantly excited by the
intelligence of the favourable trending of the coast, communicated by
Mr. Kendall, and after doubling Cape Bexley, proceeded under sail,
before a west-north-west wind, with a rapidity to which they had lately
been unaccustomed. The point of land which Cape Bexley terminates,
consists entirely of horizontal beds of limestone, and is nowhere more
than three hundred feet above the sea. On the west side, the water is
two or three fathoms deep, close to the shore, and the land attains its
greatest elevation by a steep rise from the beach. On the east side
there are some precipitous cliffs, but the coast in general is skirted
by shelving rocks. No soil was seen on the Cape, nor any appearance of
vegetation, the ground being every where covered, to the depth of a
foot, by fragments of limestone, which are detached by the frost from
the solid strata lying beneath. We were much puzzled at f