outh, and bound a large tract of sea, comparatively
free from land. The heat of the summer in that quarter seems to be
always or almost always sufficient to admit of the ice breaking up, but
not powerful enough to dissolve it entirely. Hence the loose ice driven
about by the winds, and carried to the lee-side of the wider expanses of
sea, is firmly packed in the narrow straits and winding passages amongst
the islands, from whence it can be dislodged only by a concurrence of
very favourable circumstances, and where the waste by the solar rays is
replaced by every breeze blowing from the open sea. The north-west winds
being the strongest and most prevalent in the latter part of the summer,
it is at the western end of a strait that the ice is most frequently and
closely packed. Captain Parry remarks that "there was something peculiar
about the south-west extremity of Melville Island, which made the icy
sea there extremely unfavourable to navigation, and which seemed to bid
defiance to all efforts to proceed farther to the westward in that
parallel of latitude." The Dolphin and Union Straits hold out greater
prospects of success for a similar attempt, not only from their more
southern position, but from the strong current of flood and ebb which
flows through them and keeps the ice in motion.

We noticed on the coast about one hundred and seventy _phaenogamous_, or
flowering plants, being one-fifth of the number of species which exist
fifteen degrees of latitude farther to the southward. The grasses,
bents, and rushes, constitute only one-fifth of the number of species on
the coast, but the two former tribes actually cover more ground than all
the rest of the vegetation. The cruciferous, or cress-like tribes afford
one-seventh of the species, and the compound flowers are nearly as
numerous. The _shrubby plants_ that reach the sea-coast are the common
juniper, two species of willow, the dwarf Birch (_betula glandulosa_),
the common alder, the hippophae, a gooseberry, the red bearberry
(_arbutus uva ursi_), the Labrador tea plant, (_ledum palustre_,) the
Lapland rose (_rhododendron lapponicum_,) the bog whortleberry
(_vaccinium uliginosum_,) and the crow-berry (_empetrum nigrum_.) The
kidney-leaved oxyria grows in great luxuriance there, and occasionally
furnished us with an agreeable addition to our meals, as it resembles
the garden sorrel in flavour, but is more juicy and tender. It is eaten
by the natives, and must, as well