INTRODUCTION. xlvii 



this river in Mr. Dobbs's publications, and he conftders the 

 Indian accounts of it as favourable to his fyflera. The Com- 

 pany being dcfirous of examining the matter with prccifion, 

 ordered their Governor of Prince of Wales's Fort, to fend a 

 proper perfon to travel by land, under the efcort of fome 

 trufly Northern Indians, with orders to proceed to this 

 famous river, to take an accurate furvey of its courfe, and 

 to trace it to the fea, into which it empties itfelf. Mr. 

 Hearne, a young gentleman in their fervice, who, having 

 been an officer in the Navy, was well qualified to make ob- 

 fervations for fixing the longitude and latitude, and make 

 drawings of the country he fliould pafs through, and of 

 the river which he was to examine, v>^as appointed for this 

 fervice. 



Accordingly, he fet out from Fort Prince of Wales, on 

 Churchill River, in latitude 58' 50', on the 7th of Decem- 

 ber 1770 ; and the whole of his proceedings, from time to 

 time, are faithfully preferved in his written Journal. The 

 publication of this would not be an unacceptable prefent to 

 the world, as it draws a plain artlefs picHiure of the favage 

 modes of life, the fcanty means of fubfiftence, and indeed 

 of the fingular wretchednefs, in every refpedf, of the vari- 

 ous tribes, who, without fixed habitations, pafs their mi- 

 ferable lives, roving throughout the dreary deferts, and 

 over the frozen lakes of the immenfe track of continent 

 through which Mr. Hearne pafTed, and which he may be 

 faid to have added to the geography of the globe. His ge- 

 neral courfe was to the North Weft. In the month of June 

 1 77 1, being then at a place called Conge catha luha Chaga, he 

 had, to ufe his own words, two good obfer'uations, both by meri- 

 dian mid double altitudes, the mean of ivhich determines this place to 

 be in latitude 68" 46' North, and, by account, in longitude 24' 2' 

 2 W^ 



