94 Letters written during the late Toyage of Discovery of the day a large tent was pitched with a marquee in it, to re ceive the clocks and other instruments for making observations ore the pendulum. In the evening of the 17th our party had the sa tisfaction to send to the ships the first deer that had been killed in the season, which, when prepared, yielded only sixty pounds of meat. The animal was not of a small size j but being just arrived in the island from probably a long journey over the ice and snow, from the American coast, it was naturally very little in flesh. On the 21st another deer was sent to the ships by our party in the SW. the largest of a herd of fifteen ; but after all it afforded not quite eighty pounds of meat. It was so far encouraging to us to discover that the pools on the surface of the ice seemed to he in creasing in number and in size : but still no appearance of the breaking up of the ice could be discovered. In the evening of Thursday the 29th our party returned from the SW. expedition, with some game, hut with what was infinitely more acceptable, the tidings that the ice had been observed in motion off the coast some days before. The noise of the breaking up and crushing of the ice was heard quite loud, although the ice in motion was at least five miles out from the land. It seemed to set eastward at the rate of a mile in the hour. The wind was then moderate, but the day before it blew a fresh gale from the northward. In the course of this excursion a lake was discovered about four miles in circuit, four miles up from the shore, and twelve or fourteen miles to the westward of Winter Harbour. The lake was still frozen over, and might be that which was mentioned by the party who had lost themselves in that quarter in September last. The party under Lieutenant Beechey returned it seems some days before ours, and reported that the ice was farther advanced in dissolution than at the ships ; there being water enough in some places along shore to allow a boat to pass, large rents in the ice were also seen extending a good way outwards. One of that party succeeded in shooting a deer, although the animals were very shy of coming near the tent, by lying down on the ground and imitating the cry of the fawn, which brought the poor ani mal within gun-shot. Several foxes were seen, having a black spot on each of the hind quarters, the rest of the body being white. One of the party discovered the crown-bone of a whale a mile back from the shore, and at a good height above the water. Before the return of our party from the S.W., in a hole in the ice was found a small fish resembling a whiting : two others of the same kind were soon after found at the same place. No com munication was as yet opened from the surface of the ice down to the water, by which those fish could have passed upwards : it is probable that they had been frozen in near the surface of the water, and remained fixed through the winter until now that, the