And Though It Was Not So Open,
Yet As It Was More Directly In The Course Which It Was Their Object To
Pursue, It Was Preferred By Captain Parry.
By the 25th they had reached 99 deg.
west longitude, about 20 degrees beyond Lancaster Sound.
On the 30th they
made the S.E. point of Melville Island. By the 4th of September they had
passed the meridian of 110 deg. west longitude, in latitude 74 deg. 44' 20": this
entitled them to the first sum in the scale of rewards granted by
parliament, namely 5000_l_; as at this part of their course they were
opposite a point of land lying in the S.E. of Melville Island; this point
was called Bounty Cape. On the 6th of September they anchored, for the
first time since they had left England, in a bay, called after the two
ships.
During the remainder of the season of 1819, which however contained only
twenty more days, in which any thing could be done, Captain Parry
prosecuted with much perseverance, and in the midst of infinite
difficulties and obstacles, a plan which had suggested itself to him some
time before; this was to conduct the ships close to the shore, within the
main body of the ice; but their progress was so extremely slow, that,
during the remainder of the year they did not advance more than forty
miles. On the 21st Captain Parry abandoned the undertaking, and returned to
the bay which was called after the two ships. Here they lay ten months; and
the arrangements made by Captain Parry for the safety of the vessels, and
for the health, comfort, and even the amusement of the crew, were planned
and effected with such admirable good sense, that listlessness and fatigue
were strangers, even among sailors, a class of men who, above all others,
it would have been apprehended, would have soon wearied of such a
monotonous life. The commencement of winter was justly dated from the 14th
of September, when the thermometer suddenly fell to 9 deg.. On the 4th of
November the sun descended below the horizon, and did not appear again till
the 8th of February. A little before and after what in other places is
called the shortest day, but which to them was the middle of their long
night, there was as much light as enabled them to read small print, when
held towards the south, and to walk comfortably for two hours. Excessive
cold, as indicated by the thermometer, took place in January: it then sunk
from 30 deg. to 40 deg. below Zero: on the 11th of this month it was at 49 deg.; yet no
disease, or even pain or inconvenience was felt in consequence of this most
excessive cold, provided the proper precautions were used; nor did any
complaint arise from the extreme and rapid change of temperature to which
they were exposed, when, as was often the case, they passed from the
cabins, which were kept heated up to 60 deg. or 70 deg., to the open air, though
the change in one minute was in several instances 120 deg. of temperature.
Cold, however, as January was, yet the following month, though, as we have
already observed, it again exhibited the sun to them, was much colder; on
the 15th of February the thermometer fell to 55 deg. below Zero, and remained
for fifteen hours not higher than 54 deg.. Within the next fifteen hours it
gradually rose to 34 deg.. But though the sun re-appeared early in February,
they had still a long imprisonment to endure; and Captain Parry did not
consider it safe to leave their winter quarters till the 1st of August,
when they again sailed to the westward: their mode of proceeding was the
same as that which they had adopted the preceding year, viz. crawling along
the shore, within the fast ice; in this manner they got to the west end of
Melville Island. But all their efforts to proceed further were of no avail.
Captain Parry was now convinced, that somewhere to the south-west of this
there must be an immoveable obstacle, which prevented the ice dispersing in
that direction, as it had been found to do in every other part of the
voyage.
At last, on the 16th of August, further attempts were given up, and Captain
Parry determined to return to the eastward, along the edge of the ice, in
order that he might push to the southward if he could find an opening. Such
an opening, however, could not be found; but by coasting southward, along
the west side of Baffin's Bay, Captain Parry convinced himself that there
are other passages into Prince Regent's Inlet, besides that by Lancaster
Sound. The farthest point in the Polar sea reached in this voyage was
latitude 71 deg. 26' 23", and longitude 113 deg. 46' 43:5". On the 26th of
September they took a final leave of the ice, and about the middle of
November they arrived in the Thames.
In every point of view this voyage was extremely creditable to Captain
Parry; it is not surpassed by any for the admirable manner in which it was
conducted, for the presence of mind, perseverance, and skill of all the
arrangements and operations. It has also considerably benefited all those
branches of science to which the observations and experiments of Captain
Ross and his companions were directed, and to which we have already
adverted. Perhaps in no one point has it been of more use to mariners, than
in proving the minute accuracy of going to which chronometers have been
brought.
As this expedition very naturally encouraged the hope that a north-west
passage existed, and might be discovered and effected, and as Captain Parry
was decidedly of this opinion, government very properly resolved to send
him out again; he accordingly sailed in the spring of the year following
that of his return. He recommended that the attempt should be made in a
more southern latitude, and close along the northern coast of America, as
in that direction a better climate might be expected, and a longer season
by at least six weeks; and this recommendation, it is supposed, had its
weight with the admiralty in the instructions and discretionary powers
which they gave him.
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