Some of the sailors had their members frozen, from which they never quite recovered. One day the hut which served as an observatory was discovered to be on fire. A sailor who saved one of the precious instruments lost his hands in the effort; they were completely frost-bitten in the attempt. Nevertheless, the month of June arrived, and with it the opportunity of making excursions in the neighbourhood. It was found that, in Melville Island, the earth was carpeted with moss and herbage, with saxifrages and poppies. Hares, reindeer, the musk-ox, northern geese, plovers, white wolves and foxes, roamed around their haunts, disputing their booty with the crew. Captain Parry could not risk a second winter in this terrible region. He returned home as soon as the thaw left the passage open. In 1821, Captain Parry undertook a second voyage with the _Fury_ and _Hecla_. He visited Hudson's Bay and Fox's Channel. In his third voyage, undertaken in 1824, he was surprised by the frost in Prince Regent's Channel, and was constrained to pass the winter there. The _Fury_ was dismantled, and, being found unfit for service, Captain Parry was obliged to abandon her and return to England. Accompanied by Sir James Ross, Parry again put to sea in the _Hecla_, in April, 1826. On his third voyage, on leaving Table Island on the north of Spitzbergen, Parry placed his crew in the two training ships, _Enterprise_ and _Endeavour_; the first under his own command, the second under orders of Sir James Ross. Sometimes they sailed, sometimes hauled through the crust of the ice; sometimes the ice, which pierced their shoes, showed itself bristling with points, intersected into valleys and little hills, which it was difficult to scale. In spite of the courage and energy of their crews, the two ships scarcely advanced four miles a day, while the drifting of the ice towards the south led them imperceptibly towards their point of departure. They reached latitude eighty-two degrees forty-five minutes fifteen seconds, however, and this was the extreme point which they attained.