APPENDIX. 543 



No. IV. 

 GEOLOGICAL NOTICE 



ON THE NEW COUNTRY PASSED OVER BY CAPTAIN BACK 

 DURING HIS LATE EXPEDITION. 



By William Henry Fitton, M.D. F.R.S. G.S. &c. 



The country near the entrance of Slave River into 

 Great Slave Lake, where the route of Captain Back 

 struck off, has been described by Dr. Richardson, in 

 his valuable geological appendices to the first and se- 

 cond journeys of Captain Sir John Franklin. The 

 following observations have been drawn up, principally, 

 from the notes taken by Captain Back himself in the 

 course of his arduous journey, from that point to the 

 sea, aided by an examination of the specimens which 

 he brought to England. In arranging them in the 

 order of the route, I have adhered, as far as possible, 

 to the original words : — 



" On quitting Fort Resolution (a station of the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company, near the mouth of the Slave River), 

 we went through some of the winding channels formed by 

 the numerous islands in the Delta of Slave River ; and, 

 having passed Stony Island, which, — as Dr. Richardson 

 remarks in the appendix to Franklin's first journey, — 

 is a naked mass of red granite, fifty or sixty feet high, 

 precipitous on the north side, and lying near the junction 

 of the flat limestone strata with the primitive rocks. — 

 We then kept along the low and swampy shore, thickly 



