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"The view from the south-east part of the island led us, at first, to suppose that we
might proceed by keeping close to its south shore; but in making the attempt, the boats
repeatedly took the ground, and we were obliged to seek a passage by the north side
of the island. At the end of a mile in that direction we were stopped by the ice being
unbroken from the shore, and closely packed to seaward, as is represented in the annexed
engraving, from a sketch taken by Lieutenant Back, at the tents, about thirty feet above
the horizon. Since the day after our departure from the Mackenzie, when we first came
to the ice, we had not witnessed a more unfavorable prospect than that before us.
No water was to be seen, either from the tents, or from the different points of the island
which we visited, for the purpose of examining into the state of the ice. We were now
scantily supplied with fuel; the drift timber being covered by the ice
high up the bank, except just where the boat had landed. This island received the name of Flaxman, in honour of the late eminent sculptor. It is about four miles long, and two broad, and rises, at its highest elevation, about fifty feet. In one of the ravines, where a portion of the bank had been carried away by the disruption of the ice, we perceived that the stratum of loose earth was not more than eighteen inches thick, the lower bed being frozen mud; yet this small quantity of soil, though very swampy, nourished grasses, several of the arctic plants, and some few willows, that were about three inches high. Several boulder stones were scattered on its beach, and also in the channel that separates it from the main shore." |
