The parties were then distant from each other 539 miles.) Soon after our departure this day a sealed tin-case, sufficiently buoyant to float, was thrown overboard, containing a short account of our proceedings and the position of the most conspicuous points.

The wind blew off the land, the water was smooth and, as the sea is in this part more free from islands than in any other, there was every probability of its being driven off the shore into the current which, as I have before mentioned, we suppose, from the circumstance of Mackenzie's River being the only known stream that brings down the wood we have found along the shores, to set to the eastward.
August 23.
A severe frost caused us to pass a comfortless night.

At two P.M.we set sail and the men voluntarily launched out to make a traverse of fifteen miles across Melville Sound before a strong wind and heavy sea.

The privation of food under which our voyagers were then labouring absorbed every other terror; otherwise the most powerful persuasion could not have induced them to attempt such a traverse.

It was with the utmost difficulty that the canoes were kept from turning their broadsides to the waves, though we sometimes steered with all the paddles.