April 19th, my left foot had healed, though it was still too weak and stiff from long disuse for me to move without crutches. On this day I started for Fort Conger with a party of ten, some fifty dogs, and seven sledges loaded with dog-food and supplies for return caches. April 23d, I met Henson returning with his party at Cape Lawrence. From there I sent back my temporary help and borrowed dogs, and went on with a party of seven, including five natives. April 28th we reached Conger. May 4th, having dried all our gear and repaired sledges, I started for a reconnoissance of the Greenland northwest coast. I should have started two days earlier but for bad weather. Following the very arduous ice-foot to St. Patrick’s Bay, I found the bay filled with broken pack ice covered with snow almost thigh deep. From the top of Cape Murchison, with a good glass, no practicable road could be seen. The following day I sent two men with empty sledges and a powerful team of dogs to Cape Beechey, to reconnoitre from its summit. Their report was discouraging. Clear across to the Greenland shore, and up and down as far as the glass could reach, the channel was filled with unheaved floe fragments, uninterrupted by young ice or large floes, and covered with deep snow. Crippled as I was, and a mere dead weight on the sledge, I felt that the road was impracticable. Had I been fit and in my usual place, ahead of the sledges breaking the trail with my snowshoes, it would have been different. One chance remained—that of finding a passage across to the Greenland side at Cape Lieber. Returning to Fort Conger, I sent Henson and one Eskimo off immediately on this reconnoissance, and later sent two men to Musk-ox Bay to look for musk-oxen. Two days afterward they returned reporting sixteen musk-oxen killed, and Henson came in on the same day, reporting the condition of the channel off Capes Lieber and Cracroft the same as that off Capes Beechey and Murchison, and that they had been unable to get across. I now gave up the Greenland trip, and perhaps it was well that I did so, as the unhealed place on my right foot was beginning to break down and assume an unhealthy appearance from its severe treatment. As soon as the musk-ox skins and beef were brought in, the entire party, except myself and one Eskimo, went to the Bellows and Black Rock Vale for more musk-oxen. Twelve were killed there, and the skins and meat brought to Conger. Not believing it desirable to kill more musk-oxen, and unable to do any travelling north, I completed the work of securing the meat and skins obtained; getting the records and private papers of the United States Lady Franklin Bay Expedition together; securing as far as possible collections and property; housing material and supplies still remaining serviceable, and making the house more comfortable for the purposes of my party.