Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/439

Rh yellow sandstones. At the point where Markham and I landed the dip of the granite was to the north. Fog, sleet and a cold wind, with a good deal of swell, made landing a very uncomfortable task. Through the driving mist and sleet a few Fulmars were to be seen whirling like ghosts in the lead-coloured sky above us. The ships were now surrounded by the drifting pack coming clown the Sound, and from this date until our arrival in winter-quarters it was a succession of conflicts with the ice, only varied day from day by the greater or less number of risks run.

On the morning of July 30th, after battling twenty-four hours fruitlessly with the pack, our ships took refuge in a small harbour near Cape Sabine, lying between Brevoort Island and the main- land. Before getting under the lee of the land a sounding was obtained in 210 fathoms with grey mud. It proved to be richer in Diatomaceae (notably Coscinodiscus radiatus) than in Rhizopoda. Of the latter Cassidulina, Truncatulina and Nionina were the most prominent types.* We remained off and on in the shelter of Payer Harbour for five days. Whenever there appeared the slightest sign of opening in the pack outside, our two ships ran into the ice, and endeavoured to find a lead- or water-way around the prominent headland of Cape Sabine, against which the drifting ice impinged with great force, rearing up huge hummocks on its northern face.

It was very aggravating, at almost the outset of the Expedition, to meet with such unexpected delays. We had been led to hope that an almost continuous water-way would have been found through Smith Sound, and we dreaded greatly being caught in the pack and drifted helplessly to the south, feeling how disappointing such an untoward result would be to people in England. These delays, however, gave me several opportunities of landing and examining the surrounding country. Its appearance was sadly bare and desolate; the land rose abruptly to a height of 1500 or 5000 feet, and was chiefly composed of a red syenite, which does not appear to disintegrate freely, and consequently little or no soil had been formed in likely spots. No valley led into the interior, and a careful search did not produce above twenty flowering plants; a pretty little fern, Cystopteris fragilis, was found growing freely as high as 250 feet above sea-level. The summits of the hill-tops that I ascended were strewed over with boulders of foreign rocks,

Brady, 'Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' June, 1878, pp. 425—440.