412 Thirty Years 



r 7ti! y ' Th e night was cold, and at day-light on the 

 7th the thermometer indicated 36°. Embarking at 

 four a.m. we sailed down the river for two hours, when 

 our progress was arrested by the shallowness of the 

 water. Having endeavored, without effect, to drag 

 the boats over the flat, we remounted the stream to 

 examine an opening to the westward, which we had 

 passed. On reaching the opening we found the cur- 

 rent setting through it into the Mackenzie, by whic i 

 we knew that it could not afford a passage to the sea, 

 but we pulled up it a little way, in the hope of ob- 

 taining a view over the surrounding low grounds from 

 the top of an Esquimaux house which we saw before 

 us. A low fog, which had prevailed all the morning, 

 cleared away, and we discovered that the stream we 

 had now ascended issued from a chain of lakes lying 

 betwixt us and the western hills, which were about 

 six miles distant, the whole intervening country be- 

 tween the hills, and the Mackenzie being flat. 



After obtaining an observation for longitude in 136° 

 19' W., and taking the bearing of several remarkable 

 points of the Kooky Mountain range, we returned t<> 

 the Mackenzie, and passing the shallows which had 

 before impeded us, by taking only half the hunts' ear- 

 goes over at a time, we cane' in Sight of the mouth of 



the river. Whilst the crews were Btowing the boats, 



I obtained an observation for latitude in 68° .03' N., 



