<278 ' DISCOVERIES OF 1741. 



other's strength was so far exhausted, that he fell 

 dow^n and died also in attempting to dig a grave 

 for his companion. The sculls and other large 

 bones of those two men are now lying above 

 ground close to the house. The longest liver was, 

 according to the Esquimaux account, always em- 

 ployed in working iron into implements for them ; 

 probably he was the armourer or smith."'* 



CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON. 1741. 



The circumstances mentioned by Scroggs and 

 Barlow respecting the tides, and the whales ob- 

 served in the Welcome, the copper mine from 

 which theixi was so easy a communication with 

 the sea, and the chart made by the native Indians, 

 were considered by a gentleman of the name of 

 Dobbs as being such decisive proofs of a passage 

 mto the Great Western Ocean, that, by dint of 

 persuasion, solicitation, and importunity, he suc- 

 ceeded in prevailing on the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany to send out two small vessels, for the purpose 

 of examining the eastern coast of the Welcome 

 to the northward of their settlements ; and these 

 ships sailed accordingly on this service in the year 

 1737. It does not appear that any account of their 



* Journey from Prince of Wales s Fort in Hudson's Bay to the 

 Northern Ocean. By Samuel Hearne. Introd. p. xxxi. 



