192 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



MARBLE ISLAND AND THE NORTH-WEST COAST 

 OF HUDSON'S BAY.* 



BY ROBERT BELL, B.A.Sc, M.D., LL.D. 



ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OK THE GEOLOGICAL SURVBV OF CANADA. 



Marble Island, in the north-western part of Hudson's Bay, is better 

 known than any other spot in that part of the world, mainly owing 

 to the fact that it has long been the rendezvous of the American 

 whalers who frequent our great inland sea. But it has some very 

 interesting historical associations as well, and its extraordinary 

 appearance has helped to bring it into notice. Although it was 

 first called Marble Island, the name was changed to Biook-Cobham, 

 by Fox, the discoverer of the great Channel which constitutes the 

 north-westward continuation of Hudson's Straits, and which bears his 

 name. However, the original name is now generally adopted. 



The island lies about sixteen miles out from the north-western 

 shore of Hudson's Bay, in latitude 60° 40', and between longitude 

 91^ and 92° west. It has a length of about twenty-five miles by a 

 breadth of five or six. The surface has an undulating outline 

 with long, gentle slopes ; and its general elevation is a few hundred 

 feet above the sea. The harbour used by the American whalers is 

 situated on the south side and near the west end. It consists of an 

 outer and an inner harbour. The outer one is formed by a small 

 island called Deadman's Island, and from it, a narrow channel, with 

 no great depth of water, which has been cut by nature through a 

 ridge of rocks, leads to the inner harbour, a land-locked basin measur- 

 ing fully a mile in its greatest diameter. 



Pei'Laps the best way to give an idea of the appearance and char- 

 acteristic features of Marble Island will be to describe our own 

 impressions on first visiting it during the summer of 1884 by the 

 S.S. Neptune. No one connected with the expedition had been in this 

 quarter before. At the time when we were nearing this side of the 

 bay, we had lost our reckoning owing to thick weather, and although 



*The illustration accompanying this paper is inserted by the kind permission of Dr. Alfred 

 R. C. Selwyn.C.M.G., F.R.S., Director of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada, 

 as is also the illustration accompanying Mr. Stupart's paper in this volume on -'The Eskimo- 

 of Stupart's Bay. 



