On August 14th we paddled the whole day along the northern shores of the sound, returning towards its mouth.  The land we were now tracing is generally so flat that it could not be descried from the canoes at the distance of four miles and is invisible from the opposite side of the sound, otherwise a short traverse might have saved us some days.  The few eminences that are on this side were mistaken for islands when seen from the opposite shore; they are for the most part cliffs of basalt and are not above one hundred feet high; the subjacent strata are of white sandstone.  The rocks are mostly confined to the capes and shores, the soil inland being flat, clayey, and barren.  Most of the headlands showed traces of visits from the Esquimaux but none of them recent.  Many ducks were seen, belonging to a species termed by the voyagers from their cry caccawees.  We also saw some gray geese and swans.  The only seal we procured during our voyage was killed this day; it happened to be blind and our men imagining it to be in bad health would not taste the flesh; we however were less nice.

We encamped at the end of twenty-four miles’ march on the north-west side of the bay to which I have given the name of my friend Captain Parry, now employed in the interesting research for a North-West Passage.  Driftwood had become very scarce and we found none near the encampment; a fire however was not required as we served out pemmican for supper and the evening was unusually warm.

On the following morning the breeze was fresh and the waves rather high.  In paddling along the west side of Parry’s Bay we saw several deer but, owing to the openness of the country, the hunters could not approach them.  They killed however two swans that were moulting, several cranes and many gray geese.  We procured also some caccawees which were then moulting and assembled in immense flocks.  In the evening, having rounded Point Beechy and passed Hurd’s Islands, we were exposed to much inconvenience and danger from a heavy rolling sea, the canoes receiving many severe blows and shipping a good deal of water, which induced us to encamp at five P.M. opposite to Cape Croker which we had passed on the morning of the 12th; the channel which lay between our situation and it being about seven miles wide.  We had now reached the northern point of entrance into this sound which I have named in honour of Lord Viscount Melville, the first Lord of the Admiralty.  It is thirty miles wide from east to west and twenty from north to south, and in coasting it we had sailed eighty-seven and a quarter geographical miles.  Shortly after the tents were pitched Mr. Back reported from the steersman that both canoes had sustained material injury during this day’s voyage.  I found on examination that fifteen timbers of the first canoe were broken, some of them in two places, and that the second canoe was so loose in the frame that its timbers could not be bound in the usual secure manner,