A steady breeze springing up from the W.N.W. in the afternoon, the ships stood to the northward till we had distinctly made out that no passage to the westward could at present be found between the ice and the land. The weather having become clear about this time, we perceived that there was a large open space to the southward, where no land was visible; and for this opening, over which there was a dark water-sky, our course was now directed. Since the time when we first entered Sir James Lancaster's Sound, the sluggishness of the compasses, as well as the amount of their irregularity produced by the attraction of the ship's iron, had been found very rapidly, though uniformly, to increase as we proceeded to the westward; so much, indeed, that, for the last two days, we had been under the necessity of giving up altogether the usual observations for determining the variation of the needle on board the ships. This irregularity became more and more obvious as we now advanced to the southward, which rendered it not improbable that we were making a very near approach to the magnetic pole. For the purposes of navigation, therefore, the compasses were from this time no longer consulted; and in a few days afterward, the binnacles were removed as useless lumber from the deck to the carpenter's storeroom, where they remained during the rest of the season. A dark sky to the southwest had given us hopes of finding a westerly passage to the south of the ice along which we were now sailing; more especially as the inlet began to widen considerably as we advanced in that direction: but at three A.M. on the morning of the 8th, we perceived that the ice ran close in with a point of land bearing S.b.E. from us, which appeared to form the southern extremity of the eastern shore. With the increasing width of the inlet we had flattered ourselves with increasing hopes; but we soon experienced the mortification of disappointment. The prospect from the crow's-nest began to assume a very unpromising appearance, the whole of the western horizon, from north round to S.b.E., being completely covered with ice, consisting of heavy and extensive floes, beyond which no indication of water was visible; instead of which there was a bright and dazzling iceblink extending from shore to shore. The western coast of the inlet, however, trended much more to the westward than before, and no land was visible to the southwest, though the horizon was so clear in that quarter, that, if any had existed of moderate height, it might have been easily seen at this time at the distance of ten or twelve leagues. From these circumstances, the impression received at the time was, that the land, both on the eastern and western side of this inlet, would be one day found to consist of islands.