INTRODUCTION 49 



oil. When the Spring advanced, the Esquimaux went to the 

 continent, and on their visiting Marble Island again, in the 

 Summer of one thousand seven hundred and twenty-one, they 

 only found five of the English alive, and those were in such 

 distress for provisions that they eagerly eat the seal's flesh 

 and whale's blubber quite raw, as they purchased it from the 

 natives. This disordered them so much, that three of them 

 died in a few days, and the other two, though very weak, 

 made a shift to bury them. Those two survived many days 

 after the rest, and frequently went to the top of an adjacent 

 rock, and earnestly looked to the South and East, as if in 

 expectation of some vessels coming to their relief. After 

 continuing there a considerable time together, and nothing 

 appearing in sight, they sat down close together, and wept 

 bitterly. At length one of the two died, and the other's 

 strength was so far exhausted, that he fell down and died also, 

 in attempting to dig a grave for his companion. The [xxxii] 

 sculls and other large bones of those two men are now lying 

 above-ground close to the house. The longest liver was, 

 according to the Esquimaux account, always employed in 

 working of iron into implements for them ; probably he was 

 the armourer, or smith. 



Some Northern Indians who came to trade at Prince of 

 Wales's Fort in the Spring of the year one thousand seven 

 hundred and sixty-eight, brought farther accounts of the 

 grand river, as it was called, and also several pieces of copper, 

 as samples of the produce of the mine near it ; which deter- 

 mined Mr. Norton, who was then Governor at Churchill, 

 to represent it to the Company as an affair worthy of their 

 attention ; and as he went that year to England, he had an 

 opportunity of laying all the information he had received 

 before the Board, with his opinion thereon, and the plan which 

 he thought most likely to succeed in the discovery of those 

 mines. In consequence of Mr. Norton's representations, the 

 Committee resolved to send an intelligent person by land to 



D 



