completely clear of the ice, and once more found themselves in the open sea.  Baffin and Davis both mention that the northern parts of Baffin’s Bay were clear of ice when they were there, so that it is probably generally the case.  On the 29th a wide opening was descried in the land; this they entered on the following day.  “On each side was a chain of high mountains; and in the space between, W. S.W., there appeared a yellow sky, but no land was seen, nor was there any ice on the water, except a few icebergs; the opening therefore took the appearance of a channel, the entrance of which was judged to be forty-five miles; the land on the north side lying in an E.N.E. and W.S.W. direction, and the south side nearly east and west.”  “As the evening closed, the wind died away, the weather became mild and warm, the water much smoother, and the atmosphere clear and serene.”

Even those who are little acquainted with the symptoms which in this high latitude indicate an open sea, must be struck with the wide difference between these circumstances and those which had met the navigators in almost every other part of their voyage, since they had approached the place where a passage might possibly exist and be found.  Yet, even at this time and place, when expectation must have been high, and not without good reason, and when we are expressly informed by Captain Ross that much interest was excited by the appearance of the sound, the attempt to ascertain, by close and accurate investigation, whether this sound was really closed at its extremity, or led into another sea, was given up, after having sailed into it during the night, and till three o’clock the following day.  It is unnecessary here to examine the reasons which induced Captain Ross to leave this sound without putting the question of its nature and termination beyond a doubt, by an accurate and close survey.  He says, that at three o’clock he distinctly saw the land round the bottom of the bay, forming a connected chain of mountains with those which extended along the north and south sides.  No person seems to have been on deck when this land was seen by the captain, and orders in consequence given to put the ships about, except Mr. Lewis, the master, and another.  So that in this latitude, where the sight at all times is mocked with fogs and other circumstances which mislead it, and where, therefore, it is absolutely necessary that as many eyes as possible should be employed, that these should get as near the object as possible, that it should be viewed for a considerable length of time, and under as many aspects, and from as many points as possible—­not a subordinate or incidental design of the voyage, but that for which it was expressly made, was abandoned, and on the sole responsibility of the captain and two other persons.

It is evident, too, that the entrance to many inland seas seems, when viewed from a distance, to be blocked up by connected land.  It is well observed by the reviewer, whom we have already quoted, that there is not a reach in the Thames that to the eye does not appear to terminate the river; and in many of them (in the Hope, for instance) it is utterly impossible to form a conjecture, at the distance of only two or three miles, what part of the land is intersected by the stream.