208 REMARKS AND OPINIONS. 



world, appropriate to themselves the fruits of tlie 

 industry of the people whom they conquer, with- 

 out bringing them new ones ; and whales are pur- 

 sued to this day by the natives of the Aleutian 

 islands, only after the old manner, with their own 

 harpoon. Every other confirmation of the fact 

 would be useless. 



We find, out of the limits of Burney*s works, 

 another fact, whicli Barrow has not mentioned in 

 liis Chronological History of Voyages to the Arc- 

 tic Regions, Lond. 1818, and which appears to us 

 to require some attention. 



According to the accounts collected by Macken- 

 zie, at the mouth of tlie river called after his name, 

 a ship, or very large boat, manned with white 

 men, visited this coast towards the year I78O, and 

 the Esquimaux procured iron from it in exchange 

 for skins. Mackenzie River seems to discharge 

 itself into the sea, between two very far projecting 

 tongues of land. The sea on the west, in which 

 the ship appeared, has received from this circum- 

 stance the name of Belhoullai Tou, White Man*s 

 Sea. It seems natural for us to imagine that this 

 ship reached that spot through Beering's Straits. 



There is indisputably a northern current in 

 Beering's Strait itself, at least during the summer 

 months. We found this current pretty strong on 

 the 16th of August, on the Asiatic side of the 

 strait. Its effects carried us considerably back, 

 when we came out of the strait to double Cape 



17 



