46 INTRODUCTION TO THE 



except to the west, where there was a little rivulet ; 

 to survey the state of which, Mr. Norton and the 

 crew of the cutter having landed, and marched up 

 the country, saw that it soon terminated in three 

 falls, one above another, and not water for a small 

 boat over them ; and ridges, mostly dry from side 

 to side, for five or six miles higher. 



Thus ends Chesterfield's Inlet, and all Mr. Ellis's 

 expectations of a passage through it to the Western 

 Ocean. The other part of the coast, from latitude 

 62, to the South Point of Main, within which limits 

 hopes were also entertained of finding a passage, 

 have, of late years, been thoroughly explored. It is 

 here that Pistol Bay is situated ; which the author 

 who has writ last in this country, on the probability 

 of a north-west passage*, speaks of as the only re- 

 maining part of Hudson's Bay where this western 

 communication may exist. But this has been also 

 examined ; and, on the authority of Captain Chris- 

 topher, we can assure the reader, that there is no 

 inlet of any consequence in all that part of the coast. 

 Nay, he has, in an open boat, sailed round the bottom 

 of what is called Pistol Bay, and, instead of a pas- 

 sage to a western sea, found it does not run above 

 three or four miles inland. 



Besides these voyages by sea, which satisfy us that 

 we must not look for a passage to the South of 67 

 of latitude ; we are indebted to the Hudson's Bay 

 Company for a journey by land which has thrown 

 much additional light on this matter, by affording 

 what may be called demonstration, how much farther 

 north, at least in some part of their voyage, ships 

 must hold their course, before they can pass from one 

 side of America to the other. The Northern Indians, 

 who come down to the Company's forts for trade, had 

 brought to the knowledge of our people, the exist- 



* Printed for Jeffreys, in 1768. His words are, " There re- 

 " mains then to be searched for the discovery of a passage, the 

 " opening called Pistol Bay, in Hudson's Bay." P. 122. 



