It was just after he had passed the Canary Islands that Ross made his first great mistake. It must be remembered in his extenuation that he was totally inexperienced in Arctic travel, and that he was unused to the strange atmospheric phenomena and illusions which meet the voyager in these regions at every turn. Even in the short period of his stay in the Polar seas, however, he ought to have learnt enough to prevent him from being beguiled into the belief that Smith’s Sound was nothing but a bay headed by a huge range of impenetrable mountains. That, however, was the conclusion to which he came, and he made no effort to push further north than the entrance to the Sound. Had he done so he would, of course, have found that his mountains were nothing but weather-gleam. He now put about and pushed south, taking very accurate bearings of the various headlands which he passed. In the course of his voyage he came upon the entrances to Jones and Lancaster Sounds, both of which he was deterred from exploring by more ranges of impenetrable mountains, through which, however, his own lieutenant, Parry, sailed with perfect ease in the following year. He reached Grimsby on November 14, meeting with no adventures worth recording on the way home. His voyage had two great results. It opened up an enormous and most lucrative whale fishery in and around Melville Bay, and it vindicated Baffin’s position as an explorer. Otherwise it was a little disappointing, for if he had not been so obsessed with the idea that mountains hemmed him in on every side, he might have accomplished much more than he actually achieved. In the narrative of his voyage, which he published after his return, Ross distinctly implies that his opinion as to the impossibility of finding a passage through any one of these three sounds was shared by the rest of his officers. This, however, appears to have been very far from the truth, as Parry’s journals and letters attest. At the time when the two vessels were cruising about in the mouth of Lancaster Sound they were some three miles apart, the _Isabella_ being in advance. When the _Isabella_ put about, the crew of the _Alexander_ were positively amazed, for so far as they could discern, there was no land anywhere in sight.