Progress down the Western Coast of Baffin's Bay.--Meet with the Whalers.--Account of some Esquimaux in the Inlet called the River Clyde.--Continue the Survey of the Coast till stopped by Ice in the Latitude of 68¼°.--Obliged to run to the Eastward.--Fruitless Attempts to regain the Land, and final Departure from the Ice.--Remarks upon the probable Existence and Practicability of a Northwest Passage, and upon the Whale Fishery.--Boisterous Weather in Crossing the Atlantic.--Loss of the Hecla's Bowsprit and Foremast.--Arrival in England. The wind continuing fresh from the northward on the morning of the 1st of September, we bore up and ran along the land, taking our departure from the flagstaff in Possession Bay, bearing W.S.W. five miles, at half past four A.M. The ice led us off very much to the eastward after leaving Pond's Bay; and the weather became calm, with small snow towards midnight. In this day's run, the compass-courses were occasionally inserted in the logbook, being the first time that the magnetic needle had been made use of on board the Hecla, for the purposes of navigation, for more than twelve months. On the morning of the 3d we passed some of the highest icebergs I have ever seen, one of them being not less than one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet above the sea, judging from the height of the Griper's masts when near it. The vegetation was tolerably luxuriant in some places upon the low land which borders the sea, consisting principally of the dwarf-willow, sorrel, saxifrage, and poppy, with a few roots of scurvy-grass. There was still a great deal of snow remaining even on the lower parts of the land, on which were numerous ponds of water; on one of these, a pair of young red-throated divers, which could not rise, were killed; and two flocks of geese, one of them consisting of not less than sixty or seventy, were seen by Mr. Hooper, who described them as being very tame, running along the beach before our people, without rising, for a considerable distance. Some glaucous gulls and plovers were killed, and we met with several tracks of bears, deers, wolves, foxes, and mice. The coxswain of the boat found upon the beach part of the bone of a whale, which had been cut at one end by a sharp instrument like an axe, with a quantity of chips lying about it, affording undoubted proof of this part of the coast having been visited at no distant period by Esquimaux; it is more than probable, indeed, that they may inhabit the shores of this inlet, which time would not now permit us to examine. More than sixty icebergs of very large dimensions were in sight from the top of the hill, together with a number of extensive floes to the northeast and southeast, at the distance of four or five leagues from the land.