191-i] The Ottawa Naturalist. 25 



Three years later Mackenzie explored the Peace river, and 

 crossed over to the Pacific, being the first white man to cross 

 the continent north of Mexico. 



In 1821 the two fur trading companies, finding that their 

 profits were being reduced by competition, amalgamated under 

 the name of the older company, and thus was ended one of the 

 most interesting chapters in the history of the Northern Interior 

 of Canada. 



In 1819 Franklin made his first journey into the Mackenzie 

 basin, when he explored the Coppermine river and apart of the 

 Arctic coast to the east, a journey which cost him the lives of 

 manv of his party. In 182 5 he made a second and more successful 

 trip to the mouth of the Mackenzie and along the coast to the 

 east and west. 



Franklin's journeys mark the beginning of much Arctic 

 exploration, and in the succeeding years the Mackenzie was 

 traversed by such men as Dease, Siinpson, Rae, Richardson and 

 many others. Many of these explorers were sent out to search 

 for traces of Franklin's last expedition, from which neither he 

 nor an}^ of his party ever returned. 



Much of the details of geographical work in the Mackenzie 

 basin was filled in by the officers of the Hudson Bay Company, 

 but few of them considered it worth while to record their observa- 

 tions in writing or were trained for that kind of work. In more 

 recent times, Father Petitot did a great deal of unobstrusive 

 exploratory work, and later still we have such men as Macoun, 

 McConnell, Ogilvie, Russell, Bell, Preble and mam' others. The 

 most important geographical and geological work in this field in 

 the present generation is that of McConnell, whose expeditions in 

 1887-88 and later, added more to our knowledge of the geology 

 and natural resources of the region than any other expeditions 

 since. 



There is still much exploratory work to be done, and there 

 are many blank spaces on the map of the Mackenzie basin to 

 be filled in. 



Unexplored Area. 



In 1890, Dr. George Dawson, in a paper before the Ottawa 

 Field-Naturalists' Club, made an estimate of the area of un- 

 explored territory in Canada, exclusive of the islands of the 

 Arctic. His results were obtained in this way. All lines along 

 which reasonably satisfactory explorations had been made, he 

 gave a width of 50 miles, that is to say, he assumed that the 

 explorer learned something of the country 25 miles on either 



