HISTORICAL SUMMARY 
provisions thoughtfully housed by Parry were the means of 
saving the crew from starvation. They at length escaped from 
the ice in their boats, and were picked up by a whaler in Lan- 
caster sound. Sir John Ross surveyed the shores adjoining his 
winter quarters, and named the lower part of Regent inlet the 
Gulf of Boothia. 
The chief discoveries were made by Lieutenant James Clark 
Ross, who, by several long sled journeys, traced.a part of the 
shores of King William island, and of the west side of  
peninsula of Boothia, up to the Magnetic Pole; also the shores 
of Lord Mayors bay and its vicinity in the Gulf of Boothia. 
During the retreat to Fury beach, Brentford bay was crossed 
several times without notice being taken of Bellot strait. 
Considerable anxiety was felt in England, after two winters 
had passed without any tidings of the Victory, and Captain 
Back was outfitted by public subscription to descend the Great 
Fish river to its mouth, and there if possible, with the help of 
natives, succour the crew of the Victory. Back spent the winter 
of 1834 at Great Slave lake, and the following summer crossed 
the height-of-land and descended Great Fish river to its mouth 
in a heavy boat. Having been informed, by an express from 
England, of the safe return of Ross, he confined himself to geo- 
graphical work, and traced the estuary of the river to Cape 
Britannia on the one side and to Point Richardson on the other, 
leaving only a short distance between his northern termination 
and the southern point of James Ross' southern sled journey. 
The result of this journey left only 160 miles to the west of the 
Mackenzie, and thirteen degrees of longitude between Frank- 
lin's Point Turnagain and the Gulf of Boothia to complete the 
northwest passage. 
The Hudson's Bay Company undertook to fill these gaps of 
unsurveyed coast-line, and sent an expedition under the direc- 
tion of Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson, an expert 
surveyor. The western section was first completed in 1837. In 
