2()4 DISCOVERIES OF 1746. 



very salt. At this place a fall or rapid extended 

 across the strait, which, however, the boats passed 

 without difficulty, and found the depth beyond it 

 increase so much that they had no bottom with 140 

 fathoms of line. The water at the surface was 

 fresh, but on sinking an empty bottle to the depth of 

 thirty fathoms, it came up full of water as salt as 

 that in the Atlantic. Soon after this the water 

 suddenly shoaled, and it was discovered that the 

 inlet terminated in two unnavigable rivers, one of 

 which proceeded from a Large lake lying to the 

 south-westward. 



Being disappointed in not finding a passage 

 through Wager Strait, for so it was supposed to be, 

 it was proposed that they should examine another 

 opening to the northward, which appears to have 

 been Captain Middletons frozen strait, or entrance 

 into what is now known as Repulse Bay. They had 

 sufficient encouragement to make this attempt, as 

 the farther thev advanced to the northward along 

 this coast, the more flattering were the prospects of a 

 passage communicating v/ith a great ocean, as the 

 tides were always higher and the time of high 

 water sooner than to the southward; and Mr. 

 Ellis says, '^ the saltness and transparency of the 

 water in the Welcome was such, that one might 

 see the bottom at the depth of twelve or fourteen 

 fathoms ;" to which he adds, " the numbers of 

 whales that were continually seen upon the coast, 



