484 
NATURE 
a 
| March 22, 1883 
a short part of its transit, and passing behind the roofs of some 
houses was immediately lost to sight. HENRY CECIL 
Bregner, Bournemouth, March 20 
P.S.—If a line be drawn north and south, the meteor became 
visible at a point due east, which direction I was facing. 
THE BRITISH CIRCUMPOLAR EXPEDITION? 
eS journey to Fort Rae, though long, was full of 
interest and variety. Our party, consisting of myself, 
two sergeants, and an artificer, of the Royal Artillery, left 
Winnipeg on June 9 by steamer for Fort Carlton, on the 
Saskatchewan, vi@ Lake Winnipeg. We were detained 
a day in that lake by ice, but reached the mouth of the 
Saskatchewan on the 13th, where we were delayed four 
days trans-shipping cargo to the river steamer, which lay 
three miles off at the upper end of the rapids; a tedious 
voyage of eight days took us to Carlton, a stockaded port 
on the south bank of the river. For the first three days 
the country seemed one immense swamp, with numerous 
shallow lakes ; then the banks gradually grow higher, till 
at “the Forks” (the confluence of the north and south 
branches of the Saskatchewan) they are about 150 feet 
above the river. Here the soil seems very rich and fer- 
tile, and about the new settlement of Prince Albert, a day 
higher up, the country is quite English in appearance— 
undulating, covered with rich grass, with woods here and 
there—a far more attractive-looking country than the flat, 
treeless prairie near Winnipeg. 
From Carlton, after a day or two spent in hiring 
transport carts, we started on the 3oth with a train of ten 
carts, containing our provisions and baggage. The 
country was very pretty, well wooded and watered, with 
duck, snipe, and prairie chicken in abundance ; it was at 
times difficult to believe one was not in an English park. 
But the most vivid imagination cannot picture the swarms 
of mosquitoes that at times attacked us: they came 
against our faces like flakes in a heavy snowstorm, and 
though we found our veils and gloves a good protection 
whilst travelling, yet, when mealtimes came, veils had to 
be laid aside, and the wretched insects seized the oppor- 
tunity of taking their meal too. 
On the third day of our journey, on reaching the crest 
of some rising ground, an extended view opened before 
us, ridge behind ridge, a sombre sea of pinewood stretching 
away in the distance. It was the great sub-Arctic forest 
which extends northwards to the barren grounds at the 
Arctic circle and east and west to the Atlantic and the 
Pacific. On entering the woods the mosquitoes were not 
quite so bad, but our unfortunate animals became the 
prey of an enormous horsefly, which settled on them in 
thousands, biting them till they were streaming with 
blood. Fortunately they only came out during the heat 
of the day, and we were sometimes obliged to make a 
halt and light fires so that the animals might stand in 
the smoke, which they were very willing to do; indeed 
they often put a newly-lighted fire out by rolling in it. 
The road through the woods was very bad, and 
breakdowns were numerous, but at last on July 9 we 
reached Green Lake, which we left by boat on the 11th for 
Ile 4 la Crosse. Cur conveyance was now one of the 
Hudson Bay Company’s inland boats, with a crew of 
eight Indians. As we had the stream with us, we were 
able to drift all night, only landing when we required to 
cook; so we reached Ile a la Crosse early on the 14th. 
We left it the same evening with a crew of eight 
Chipewyans, the best crew we ever had. I think they 
must have pulled sixty miles on one day, the day after we 
left the fort. On the evening of that day we had an 
aurora shortly after sunset, which is unusually early in 
‘ Letter from Capt. Dawson, R.A., in command of the Expedition. 
See p. 243. 
the evening for one. This one appeared to be remark- 
ably close, from its rapid motion and from its being 
between us and a cirro-cumulus cloud. It was accom- 
panied by a distinct swishing noise like the sound of a 
sharp squall in a ship’s rigging, or the noise a whip 
makes in passing through the air. I have not heard it 
since, though there have been plenty of auroras, but 
from what I have been told by those who have passed 
their lives in the country, I am of opinion that this sound 
is occasionally, though rarely, heard, and that it would 
be heard oftener were it not that the aurora is generally 
at too great a height. 
Two more days brought us to Portage la Loche, a 
track of some fourteen miles across the watershed 
dividing the basin of the Arctic Ocean from that of 
Hudson’s Bay. It is fairly level till the last mile, when 
the edge of the valley of the Clearwater River is reached, 
some 600 feet above the stream. From this point the 
view of the valley is very fine, and it strikes one the 
more from the monotonous nature of the scenery hitherto. 
The river flows between two ranges of hills, from 800 to 
1000 feet in height, and here and there in rapids between 
limestone cliffs. The first “portage” (where the boats 
have to be hauled some distance overland) is particularly 
picturesque, but the whole valley abounds in bits that 
would delight an artist’s eye. 
On July 28 we reached the Athabasca River, a fine 
stream, half a mile or more in width, and the strong 
current, aided by a fair wind, took us to the lake in a 
couple of days. There are several springs of naphtha | 
and one of sulphur on the banks. 
On crossing Lake Athabasca to Fort Chipewyan, there | 
is a complete change in the character of the country. On 
the south side the banks are nearly level with the water, 
all reeds and mud ; on the north side is a savage wilder- 
ness of Laurentian rock. From a hill at the back of the 
fort is an extensive view of this strange and desolate 
country. To the west the lake stretches away to the 
horizon ; on the other side is a mixture of lake, island, | 
and river, and to the north the land, a wilderness of rock | 
in low rounded hills, with a few stunted pines in the’ 
valleys, all pretty enough, but so lonely looking. j 
We were detained a fortnight at Fort Chipewyan till” 
the arrival of the Mackenzie River boats. The heat was 
at times extreme—as much as 90” in the house. 
The Slave River, or Mackenzie, as it really is, is a) 
magnificent river, especially after its junction with the § 
Peace River, which is at least as big as the Athabasca.) 
The united stream is often a mile in width. About half 
way to Slave Lake are the rapids, where the scenery is) 
very fine. There are four portages, over three of which 
the boats had to be hauled, so it was two days’ work) 
getting through them. We had a sharp frost on the} 
morning of the 19th, the buckets, &c., that were left with 
water in them had a quarter of an inch of ice on them in 
the morning. 
On the next evening, while running down the rapid tq 
the last portage, the ‘‘ Portage des Noyés,” after sae | 
a bright parhelion made its appearance, some 10° or 12° 
above the horizon. It was of a bright red colour, and 
threw a brilliant reflection in the water, remaining visible 
for about twenty minutes, when it changed into a crimson 
column, that gradually died away. kk 
On August 22 we reached Fort Resolution—a wretched 
looking place on a flat muddy coast—and the samefi 
evening we left for Fort Rae. At sunset the pilot of thef Ff 
boat insisted on stopping for the night at a small rock 
island at the mouth of the Slave River. I thought it 2fj 
pity to stop as we had a fair wind, but the natives of t 
country have a great dread of lakes, and certainly Grea 
Slave Lake is a stormy place. At midnight a heavy swelffie 
suddenly arose, and our boat was stove in and sunk in J \h 
very few minutes. It was a pretty wet job to land all thigie, 
baggage and stores, which of course were all saturate 
