sufficient blocks to thaw into three tons of water; and the ship was visited by a number of Esquimaux, in thirteen excellent canoes, with well-finished iron-headed weapons and good clothing. Captain Lyon now ascertained, that the Nottingham Island of Captain Parry is incorrectly laid down, as it lies to the southward of Salisbury, instead of being situated between that and Southampton Island. “I have no doubt,” says he, “that the small portion of land which we mistook for Nottingham in the last voyage, is in fact one of Baffin’s ‘Mill Islands’, the position of which has hitherto been so imperfectly known. Our cross bearings gave the southern coast of Salisbury, so as to correspond most exactly with the northern part as laid down by Captain Parry, and the form and size of this island is therefore determined “with the greatest certainty. We also at this time completed the bearings from Cape Wolstenholm; and the strait between it and the two islands is about 35 miles in breadth.”
On the evening of Oct. 2d, the crazy bark made and passed the northernmost of the bold precipitous group of Button’s Islands; the night was fine, and she ran into the Atlantic with a fair and moderate breeze.
“Never,” continues her commander, “have I ever witnessed a happier set of countenances than were on our deck this night. To have regained once more an open ocean, in a ship in which we had so often been in danger, was of itself sufficient to rejoice at; but when we reflected, that in two particular instances we had been left without the slightest probability of again seeing our country; that, when all hope had left us, we had been mercifully preserved; and that now, without the power of beating off a lee-shore, or an anchor to save us, we had run through 900 miles of a dangerous navigation, and arrived in safety at the ocean, I may say that our sensations were indescribable. For the first time since the 28th August, a period of five weeks, I enjoyed a night of uninterrupted repose. The 3d Oct. was a lovely day, and we most fortunately met with a piece of ice, from which a supply of blocks, sufficient to fill all our tanks, was obtained. Had it not been for this, we should inevitably have suffered serious distress on our homeward passage.”
Captain Lyon and his companions were, however, fated to meet with still further inconveniences, and to experience another convincing proof, that the order of the seasons and winds had been strangely changed during the autumn of
