16 PRELIMINARY CHAPTER. 



possible, consistently with a due regard for 

 the health and preservation of your party. But, 

 whatever may be its prospects or success, you 

 are on no account to prolong it beyond such a 

 period of the year (varying from the 12th to 

 the 20th of August, according to the distance 

 which you may have attained) as will insure 

 your return to your winter quarters before the 

 severe weather sets in. On your acting in this 

 particular with due caution may depend the 

 eventual success of the whole expedition. On 

 your return to your temporary establishment, 

 you are carefully to examine the state of your 

 supplies ; if possible, also, communicating with 

 Great Slave Lake, to ascertain whether additional 

 stores are there collected for you. And if you 

 find that you can, with reasonable prudence, 

 devote a second summer to the service on which 

 you are engaged, you are hereby required and 

 directed to do so ; but if not, you are to return 

 to England in the following spring. 



" Subordinate to your object of finding Captain 

 Ross, or any survivors or survivor of his party, 

 you are to direct your attention to mapping what 

 yet remains unknown of the coasts which you 

 will visit, and making such other scientific ob- 

 servations as your leisure will admit ; for which 

 purposes the requisite instruments will be supplied 

 to you. But you are not for such objects to deviate 



