Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/393

Rh accumulating duties of the suryey, and frequent want of needful rest, rendered it impossible to continue the meteorological register any longer.

From the 1st to the 5th of August we were detained, by a crush of very heavy ice, on a point that jutted out beyond all the islands. A number of observations were procured here, giving the following results: lat. 68° 7′ 8.5″ N., long. 103° 36′ 46″ W.; variation, 54° 45′ E.; dip, 88° 20′ 25″ N. The tides occurred regularly twice a-day, the rise and fall varying from 1½ to 2 feet, and the flood coming from the eastward. On this point we found the bones of a whale, and marks of the recent tents of a family or two of natives, who had left behind them the skin of a Polar bear; from which circumstance we called the spot White Bear Point.

On the 5th we worked our way out through the ice; and at half-past 10 at night, while in the act of encamping on an island in lat. 67° 56′, saw the first stars, the atmosphere being beautifully clear. Several days of remarkably fine weather succeeded, and enabled us rapidly to unravel our intricate path. Had we been enveloped in continual fogs, as in 1837, success on such a coast as this must have been hopeless; as, in addition to the perplexity of the route, the compass, from our increasing proximity to the magnetic