and Discovery of, a Winter Harbour on Melville Island.--Operations
for securing the Ships in their Winter Quarters.


As the wind still continued to blow strong from the northward on
the morning of the 6th, without any appearance of opening a
passage for us past Cape Hearne, I took the opportunity of sending
all our boats from both ships at eight A.M., to bring on board a
quantity of moss-peat which our gentlemen reported having found
near a small lake at no great distance from the sea, and which I
directed to be substituted for part of our usual allowance of
coals. Captain Sabine also went on shore to make the requisite
observations; and several of the officers of both ships to sport,
and to collect specimens of natural history.

The wind beginning to moderate soon after noon, and there being at
length some appearance of motion in the ice near Cape Hearne, the
boats were immediately recalled from the shore, and returned at
two P.M., bringing some peat, which was found to burn tolerably,
but a smaller quantity than I had hoped to procure. We then made
sail for Cape Hearne, which we rounded at six o'clock, having no
soundings with from seventeen to twenty fathoms of line, at the
distance of a mile and a quarter from the point.

I was beginning once more to indulge in those flattering hopes, of
which often-repeated disappointments cannot altogether deprive us,
when I perceived from the crow's-nest a compact body of ice,
extending completely in to the shore near the point which formed
the western extreme. We ran sufficiently close to be assured that
no passage to the westward could at present be effected, the floes