Favourable as the first part of the month of May had appeared with respect to temperature, its close was by no means equally promising, and on the first of June, at two A.M., the thermometer stood at +8 deg.  This unusually low temperature, much exceeding in severity anything we had experienced at Melville Island at the same season, rendered it necessary to defer for a time a journey which it was proposed that Captain Lyon should undertake, across the land to the westward at the head of Quilliam Creek, and thence, by means of the ice, along the shores of the Polar Sea, in the direction towards Akkoolee.  The object of this journey, like that of most of the others which had been performed in various directions, was to acquire all the information within our reach of those parts of the continental coast to which the ships were denied access; and it was hoped that, at the coming season, some judgment might be formed of the probable state of the ice along that shore in the summer, by which the future movements of the Fury might be influenced.  Captain Lyon was to be accompanied by two men, and a complete supply of every kind for a month’s travelling was to be drawn on a sledge by ten excellent dogs, which he had taken great pains to procure and train for such occasions.  As I was desirous of ascertaining, beyond any doubt, the identity of the Khemig, to which I had sailed in the autumn, with that seen by Captain Lyon on his journey with the Esquimaux, I determined to accompany the travellers on my sledge as far as the head of Quilliam Creek, and by victualling them thus far on their journey, enable them to gain a day or two’s resources in advance.  Another object which I had in view was to endeavour to find a lake mentioned by Toolemak; who assured me that, if I could dig holes in the ice, which was five feet thick, plenty of large salmon might be caught with hooks, an experiment which seemed at least well worth the trying.

On the 7th, the weather being more favourable than before, Captain Lyon and myself set out to the westward at half past eleven A.M., and the ice proving level, reached Khemig at half past five; when it was satisfactory to find that the route followed by Captain Lyon on his journey with Toolemak was precisely that which I had supposed, every feature of the land, of which the fog had before scarcely allowed him a glimpse, being now easily recognised, and every difficulty cleared up.  Proceeding at eight A.M. on the 8th, we soon met with numerous tracks of deer upon the ice, which, together with the seals that lay in great numbers near their holes, expedited our journey very considerably, the dogs frequently setting off at full gallop on sniffing one of them.  Landing at the head of Quilliam Creek at half past one, we took up an advantageous position for looking about us, in order to determine on the direction of Captain Lyon’s route over land, which all the Esquimaux concurred in representing as a laborious one.  We met with several reindeer