At ten A.M.  I despatched Captain Sabine and Mr. Ross to the eastern point of the island, which we were about to round in the ships, in order to make the necessary observations, and to examine the natural productions of the shore.  Our latitude at noon was 75 deg. 03’ 12”, long. 103 deg. 44’ 37”, and the depth of water forty fathoms.  The gentlemen reported, on their return, that they had landed on a sandy beach, near the east point of the island, which they found to be more productive, and altogether more interesting, than any other part of the shores of the Polar regions which we had yet visited.  The remains of Esquimaux habitations were found in four different places.  Six of these, which Captain Sabine had an opportunity of examining, and which are situated on a level sandy bank, at the side of a small ravine near the sea, are described by him as consisting of stones rudely placed in a circular, or, rather, an elliptical form.  They were from seven to ten feet in diameter; the broad, flat sides of the stones standing vertically, and the whole structure, if such it may be called, being exactly similar to that of the summer huts of the Esquimaux which we had seen at Hare Island the preceding year.  Attached to each of them was a smaller circle, generally four or five feet in diameter, which had probably been the fireplace.  The small circles were placed indifferently as to their direction from the huts to which they belonged; and from the moss and sand which covered some of the lower stones, particularly those which composed the flooring of the huts, the whole encampment appeared to have been deserted for several years.  Very recent traces of the reindeer and musk-ox were seen in many places; and a head of the latter, with several reindeers’ horns, was brought on board.  A few patches of snow remained in sheltered situations; the ravines, however, which were numerous, bore the signs of recent and considerable floods, and their bottoms were swampy, and covered with very luxuriant moss and other vegetation, the character of which differed very little from that of the land at the bottom of Possession Bay.

The dip of the magnetic needle was 88 deg. 25’ 58”, and the variation was now found to have changed from 128 deg. 58’ west, in the longitude of 91 deg. 48’, where our last observations on shore had been made, to 165 deg. 50’ 09” east, at our present station; so that we had, in sailing over the space included between those two meridians, crossed immediately to the northward of the magnetic pole and had undoubtedly passed over one of those spots upon the globe where the needle would have been found to vary 180 deg., or, in other words, where its north pole would have pointed due south.