200 OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO COLLINSON. \Jitne, 



superiors here for the true estimate of the endurance ex- 

 hibited. The only gap apparent to me is the examina- 

 tion of Point Hearne ; but Captain Kellett observes : 



" You will see, by Collinson's record on the 27th of 

 August, 1852, that he was waiting for a start before I 

 left Lowther Island; so that even had I picked up a 

 record of his in the autumn of that year, it would have 

 availed him nothing ; news of his whereabouts woidd 

 certainly have gone home last year by Inglefield, which 

 would have been a great thing. 



" That Collinson's officers left a cairn at Point Hearne 

 is next to impossible, for I had eight parties backwards 

 and forwards over that Point, some of them shooting 

 there, others encamped there ; it was also one of my 

 positions for a depot ! It has on it plenty of materials 

 for building a cairn. It has been gone over at all sea- 

 sons, with and without snow. 



" Mr. Pirn, on his autumn trip in 1852, for the pur- 

 pose of placing his depot, reached as far as Cape Provi- 

 dence, where he found a cairn (on its summit) ; in this 

 cairn he found a pint bottle, with a leaf of a book on 

 algebra in it, but on which there was nothing written. 

 He describes the cairn as very old and moss-grown, so 

 that I suppose it to have been one left by one of Parry's 

 shooting parties. M'Clure did not leave it. 



" Collinson in his record says, he will endeavour to go 

 along the south coast of Prince Albert's Land, and then 

 up the strait (by the Esquimaux' drawing, an inlet) be- 

 tween Wollaston and it, that one of his Lieutenants had 

 explored for 130 miles. 



" Were he able to penetrate in that direction, and found 



