While these efforts were being made to penetrate the ice which surrounds the Antarctic Pole, a region having little which could attract human enterprise, the interests of commerce seemed to call for obstinate and persevering attempts to penetrate to the Arctic Pole. In spite of these numerous expeditions, however, which extend over two centuries, the regions round the North Pole are far from being known to geographers. The fogs and snows which almost always cover them were the source of many errors made by the earlier navigators. In his first voyage, made in 1818, Sir John Ross was led to think that Lancaster Sound was closed by a chain of mountains, which he called the Croker Mountains; but in the following year Captain Parry, in command of two ships, the _Hecla_ and _Griper_, discovered that this was an error. This celebrated navigator discovered Barrow's Straits, Wellington Channel, and Prince Regent Inlet; Cornwallis, Sir Byam Martin, and Melville Islands, to which the name of Parry's Archipelago has been given. In this short voyage he gathered more new results than were obtained by his successors during the next forty years. He was the first to traverse these seas. Upon Sir Byam Martin Island he has described the ruins of some ancient habitations of the Esquimaux. He passed the winter on Melville Island. In order to attain his chosen anchorage in Winter's Bay, he was compelled to saw a passage in the ice of a league in length, which involved the labour of three days; but scarcely were they moored in their chosen harbour than the thermometer fell to eighteen degrees below zero. They carried ashore the ship's boats, the cables, the sails, and log-books. The masts were struck to the maintop; the rest of the rigging served to form a roof, sloping to the gunwale, with a thick covering of sail-cloth, which formed an admirable shelter from the wind and snow. Numberless precautions were taken against cold and wet under the decks. Stoves and other contrivances maintained a supportable degree of temperature. In each dormitory a false ceiling of impermeable cloth interposed to prevent the collection of moisture on the wooden walls of the ship. The crew were divided into companies, each company being under the charge of an officer, charged with the daily inspection of their clothes and cleanliness--an essential protection against scurvy. As a measure of precaution, Captain Parry reduced by one-third the ordinary ration of bread; beer and wine were substituted for spirits; and citron and lemon drinks were served out daily to the sailors. Game was sometimes substituted to vary a repast worthy of Spartans. As a remedy against _ennui_, a theatre was fitted up and comedies acted, for which occasions Parry himself composed a vaudeville, entitled "The North-west Passage; or, the End of the Voyage." During this long night of eighty-four days, the thermometer in the saloons marked 28°, and outside 35° below zero, and for a few minutes actually reached 47°.