cart being now disposable as fuel, we were glad to make use of it in cooking a few ptarmigan, which afforded us another sumptuous meal.  It is not perhaps, easy for those who have never experienced it, to imagine how great a luxury anything warm in this way becomes, after living entirely upon cold provisions for some time in this rigid climate.  This change was occasionally the more pleasant to us, from the circumstance of the preserved meats, on which we principally lived, being generally at this time hard frozen when taken out of the canisters.

Having finished our arrangements with respect to the baggage, which made it necessary that each of the men should carry between sixty and seventy pounds, and the officers from forty to fifty, we struck the tents at half past two on the morning of the 12th, and proceeded along the eastern shore of the cove, towards a point which forms the entrance on that side.

We arrived at the point at five o’clock, and as we could now perceive that the lake or gulf extended a considerable distance to the eastward as well as to the westward, and that it would require a long time to go round in the former direction, I determined to cross it on the ice; and as the distance to the opposite shore seemed too great for one journey, the snow being soft upon the ice, first to visit the island, and, having rested there, to proceed to the southward.  Having walked five miles in a S.S.W. direction, we landed at seven A.M., near the southeast part of the island.  The wind was fresh from the westward, and the tents were pitched near the beach, under the lee of the high part of the island.

We rested till six P.M., and then set off across the ice for a point to the E.S.E.  The snow had now become so soft after the heat of the day, that, loaded as we were, we often sunk nearly up to the knees, which made travelling very laborious, and we were, therefore, not sorry to get on shore by half past eight, having walked, by our account, three miles and a half.

The spot on which we encamped appeared so favourable for obtaining specimens of the different animals which frequent this island, that I determined to remain here one day for the purpose of sporting and examining its natural productions.

The sportsmen went out early in the morning, and soon after met with a musk-ox feeding on a spot of luxuriant pasture-ground, covered with the dung of these animals as well as of deer.  They fired at him from a considerable distance without wounding him, and he set off at a very quick pace over the hills.  The musk-ox has the appearance of a very ill-proportioned little animal, its hair being so long as to make its feet appear only two or three inches in length; they seem, indeed, to be treading upon it at every step, and the individual in question actually did so in some instances, as the hair was found in several of the foot-tracks.  When disturbed and hunted, they frequently tore up the ground with their horns, and