Mr. Fisher found very good sport in our new station, having returned in the evening, after a few hours' excursion, with nine hares; the birds had, of late, almost entirely deserted us, a flock or two of ptarmigan and snow-buntings, a few glaucous gulls, a raven, and an owl, being all that had been met with for several days. A fog, which had prevailed during the night, cleared away in the morning of the 16th, and a very fine day succeeded, with a moderate breeze from the westward. In order to have a clear and distinct view of the state of the ice, after twenty-four hours' wind from that quarter, Captain Sabine, Mr. Edwards, and myself, walked about two miles to the westward, along the high part of the land next the sea, from whence it appeared but too evident that no passage in this direction was yet to be expected. The ice to the west and southwest was as solid and compact, to all appearance, as so much land; to which, indeed, the surface of so many fields, from the kind of hill and dale I have before endeavoured to describe, bore no imperfect resemblance. I have no doubt that, had it been our object to circumnavigate Melville Island, or, on the other hand, had the coast continued its westerly direction instead of turning to the northward, we should still have contrived to proceed a little occasionally, as opportunities offered, notwithstanding the increased obstruction which here presented itself; but, as neither of these was the case, there seemed little or nothing to hope for from any farther attempts to prosecute the main object of the voyage in this place. I determined, therefore, no longer to delay the execution of my former intentions, and to make trial, if possible, of a more southern latitude, in which I might follow up the success that had hitherto attended our exertions. The station at which the ships were now lying, and which is the westernmost point to which the navigation of the Polar Sea to the northward of the American Continent has yet been carried, is in latitude 74° 26' 25", and longitude, by chronometer, 113° 46' 43.5".