RISING OF THE LAND AROUND HUDSON BAY. 365 



a good liarbor. It is only a few years since the moutli of Little Whale 

 Eiver, several hundred miles farther north, had to be abandoned as a 

 harbor on account of the increasing shallowness of the water. 



At York Factory there is a "ship hole" in the channel of Hayes 

 Eiver, directly in front of the storehouse. The seagoing vessels of light 

 draft employed in the Hudson Bay Company's trade have been accus- 

 tomed to anchor in this hole, and formerly they remained afloat at all 

 stages ot the tide, but of late years vessels drawing even less than 

 those of former times have begun to "take the ground" at low water. 

 In objection to the belief that the land is rising it may be said this may 

 be due to a silting up of the hole, but on examining the material 

 brought up on the flukes of the anchors I found it to consist of light- 

 colored stifl' bowlder clay or till. 



In 1782, after the French Admiral Lepeyrouse had destroyed Fort 

 Prince of Wales at the mouth of Churchill River, he landed with can- 

 non on the southeast side of Nelson Eiver, and, hauling them across the 

 point between it and Hayes River, captured York Factory. Two ships 

 belonging to the Hudson Bay Comjjany which were then lying in Hayes 

 Eiver, laden with valuable cargoes, escaped under cover of the dark- 

 ness of the following night and got safely to England. At the present 

 time it is only possible for a seagoing vessel to get out from this river 

 at the top of high water with favorable wind and careful piloting in 

 daylight. To say nothing of the difficulty caused by the darkness, it 

 is unlikely that all the other conditions now necessary to enable a ves- 

 sel to leave the river conspired to aid the escape of these ships. It is 

 much more reasonable to believe that the water was deeper then than 

 it is now. The landing of Lepeyrouse with his guns on the shore of 

 Nelson Eiver abreast of York Factory was a feat the like of which 

 could not be accomplished at the present day, owing to the extreme 

 shallowness of the water. 



The present Fort Churchill, or " New Fort," as it is still called, was 

 built in 1782 on the west side of the river, about 4^ miles above Fort 

 Prince of Wales, as soon as the French had retired after destroying the 

 latter establishment. The residents now suffer much inconvenience on 

 account of the continued shoaling of the water, and they have been 

 obliged to lengthen out their " launch" or long landing trestle from 

 time to time in order to be able to reach the outer end of it with their 

 coast boats. 



Ofl' the western side of the lagoon, within the mouth of Churchill 

 Eiver, is Sloops Cove, a small elliptical pond connecting with the lagoon 

 by a very narrow entrance, through which the water barely jiasses at 

 high tide. On the arkose rocks beside this little cove many inscrip- 

 tions have been cut and some ring bolts have been fastened for moor- 

 ing vessels, all of which indicate that the cove was used for wintering 

 ships in old times. Indeed, it is known that the Furnace and the Dis- 

 covery, two small ships commanded by Captain Middleton, passed the 



