may lead by a back way to Melville Island. South of Jones' Sound
there is a wide break in the shore, a great sound, named by Baffin,
Lancaster's, which Sir John Ross, in that first expedition, failed
also to explore. Like our transatlantic friends at the South Pole,
he laid down a range of clouds as mountains, and considered the way
impervious; so he came home. Parry went out next year, as a
lieutenant, in command of his first and most successful expedition.
He sailed up Lancaster Sound, which was in that year (1819)
unusually clear of ice; and he is the discoverer whose track we now
follow in our Phantom Ship. The whole ground being new, he had to
name the points of country right and left of him. The way was broad
and open, due west, a most prosperous beginning for a North-West
Passage. If this continued, he would soon reach Behring Strait. A
broad channel to the right, directed, that is to say, southward, he
entered on the Prince of Wales's birthday, and so called it the
"Prince Regent's Inlet." After exploring this for some miles, he
turned back to resume his western course, for still there was a
broad strait leading westward. This second part of Lancaster Sound
he called after the Secretary of the Admiralty who had so
indefatigably laboured to promote the expeditions, Barrow's Strait.
Then he came to a channel, turning to the right or northward, and he
named that Wellington Channel. Then he had on his right hand ice,
islands large and small, and intervening channels; on the left, ice,
and a cape visible, Cape Walker. At an island, named after the
First Lord of the Admiralty Melville Island, the great frozen
wilderness barred farther progress. There he wintered. On the
coast of Melville Island they had passed the latitude of one hundred
and ten degrees, and the men had become entitled to a royal bounty
of five thousand pounds. This group of islands Parry called North
Georgian, but they are usually called by his own name, Parry