186 A JOURNEY TO THE 



1771, about twelve or fourteen feet, which will only reach a little 

 •^" ^' way within the river's mouth. The tide being out, the water 

 in the river was perfectly fresh ; but I am certain of its being 

 the sea, or some branch of it, by the quantity of whalebone 

 and seal-skins which the Esquimaux had at their tents, and 

 also by the number of seals ^ which I saw on the ice. At the 

 mouth of the river, the sea is full of islands and shoals, as far 

 as I could see with the assistance of a good pocket telescope. 

 The ice was not then broke up, but was melted away for 

 about three quarters of a mile from the main shore, and to a 

 little distance round the islands and shoals. 



By the time I had completed this survey, it was about one 

 i8th. in the morning of the eighteenth ; but in those high latitudes, 

 and at this season of the year, the Sun is always at a good height 

 above the horizon, so that we had not only day light, but sun- 

 shine the whole night : a thick fog and drizzling rain then 

 came on, and finding that neither the river nor sea were likely 

 to be of any use, I did not think it worth while to wait for 

 fair weather to determine the latitude exactly by an observa- 

 tion ; but by the extraordinary care I took in observing the 

 courses and distances when I walked from Congecathawhachaga, 

 where I had two good observations, the latitude may be de- 

 pended upon within twenty miles at the utmost. For the 

 sake of form, [164] however, after having had some consulta- 

 tion with the Indians, I erected a mark, and took possession of 

 the coast, on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company.^ 



[^ Several species inhabit the region ; the commonest is the ringed or fetid 

 seal {F/toca hispida).—Y.. A. P.] 



[* In the summer of 182 1, fifty years after Hearne's visit, Sir John Franklin, 

 accompanied by Sir John Richardson and Sir George Back, descended and sur- 

 veyed the Coppermine River from Point Lake to the sea. He was at the 

 Bloody Falls from the 15th to the iSth of July, exactly fifty years after Hearne, 

 and found the latitude to be 67° 42' 35" N. He speaks of it as follows : 



" Several human skulls which bore the marks of violence, and many bones 

 were strewed about the ground near the encampment, and as the spot exactly 

 answers the description, given by Mr. Hearne, of the place where the Chipe- 

 wyans who accompanied him perpetrated the dreadful massacre on the 



