According to the official instructions, the interests of science were not neglected, and many important facts were made out; among the most curious, it may be mentioned, that it appears to be proved that the North Pole is not the coldest point of the Arctic hemisphere, but that the place where the expedition wintered is one of the coldest spots on the face of the globe. CHAPTER I. Passage across the Atlantic.--Enter Davis's Strait.--Unsuccessful Attempt to penetrate the Ice to the Western Coast.--Voyage up the Strait.--Passage through the Ice to the Western Coast.--Arrival off Possession Bay, on the Southern Side of the Entrance into Sir James Lancaster's Sound. In the beginning of May, 1819, the Hecla and Griper were towed down the river; the guns and gunner's stores were received on board on the 6th; and the instruments and chronometers were embarked on the evening of the 8th, when the two ships anchored at the Nore. The Griper, being a slower sailer, was occasionally taken in tow by the Hecla, and they rounded the northern point of the Orkneys, at the distance of two miles and a half; on Thursday, the 20th of the same month. Nothing of moment occurred for several days; but the wind veered to the westward on the 30th, and increased to a fresh gale, with an irregular sea and heavy rain, which brought us under our close-reefed topsails. At half past one, P.M., we began to cross the space in which the "Sunken Land of Buss" is laid down in Steel's chart from England to Greenland; and, in the course of this and the following day, we tried for soundings several times without success. Early in the morning of the 18th of June, in standing to the northward, we fell in with the first "stream" of ice we had seen, and soon after saw several icebergs. At daylight the water had changed its colour to a dirty brownish tinge. The temperature of the water was 36½°, being 3° colder than on the preceding night; a decrease that was probably occasioned by our approach to the ice. We ran through a narrow part of the stream, and found the ice beyond it to be "packed" and heavy. The birds were more numerous than usual; and, besides the fulmar peterels, boatswains, and kittiwakes, we saw, for the first time, some rotges, dovekies, or black guillemots, and terns, the latter known best to seamen by the name of the Greenland swallow.