At forty-five minutes past one P.M. we had come to the end of the clear water, and prepared to shorten sail, to await some alteration in our favour. At this time the weather was so warm that we had just exposed a thermometer to the sun to ascertain the temperature of its rays, which could not have been less than 70° or 80°, when a thick fog, which had for some hours been curling over the hills of Vansittart Island, suddenly came on, creating so immediate and extreme a change, that I do not remember to have ever experienced a more chilling sensation. As we could no longer see a hundred yards around us in any direction, nothing was to be done but to make the ships fast to the largest piece of ice we could find, which we accordingly did at two P.M., in one hundred and fifty-eight fathoms. Just before dark the fog cleared away for a few minutes, when, perceiving that the wind, which was now increasing, was likely to drift us too near the islands, we took advantage of the clear interval to run a mile farther from the land for the night, where we again made fast to a large floe-piece in two hundred fathoms. The wind, drawing round to the northward and westward, on the morning of the 2d, increased to a fresh gale, which continued to blow during the night, notwithstanding which, I was in hopes that the immense size of the floe to which the ships were attached would enable us to retain our station tolerably. It was mortifying, therefore, to find, on the morning of the 2d, that we had drifted more than I remember ever to have done before in the same time under any circumstances. It was remarkable, also, that we had not been set exactly to leeward, but past Baffin Island towards two remarkable hills on Southampton Island, from which we were at noon not more than seven or eight leagues distant. Thus, after a laborious investigation which occupied one month, we had, by a concurrence of unavoidable circumstances, returned to nearly the same spot on which we had been on the 6th of August. To consider what might have been effected in this interval, which included the very best part of the navigable season, had we been previously aware of the position and extent of the American Continent about this meridian, is in itself certainly unavailing; but it may serve to show the value of even the smallest geographical information in seas where not an hour must be thrown away or unprofitably employed. In the afternoon an attempt was made to move, for the mere sake, it must be confessed, of moving and keeping the people on the alert, rather than with the slightest prospect of gaining any ground; but, by the time that we had laid out the hawsers, the small hole of water that had appeared again closed, and we were obliged to remain as before.