44 E. Petitot on the Athabasca District. 



The third refers to the Great Bear Lake, to which Sir John 

 Richardson attributed three outlets, viz., the Bear Lake River 

 and the Hareskin Biver, entering the Mackenzie, and the Beghula 

 Biver, entering the Arctic Ocean. In ascending these three 

 rivers to their respective sources, I proved in 1869-70 that the 

 Bear Lake has only one outlet, viz., the river of the same name ; 

 that the flareskin River flows out of the Wind Lake near Smith 

 Bay in Bear Lake; and that the Anderson (the " Beghula " of Rich- 

 ardson) rises in a little lake at the foot of Mount " Ti-depay " 

 quite to the north of and some distance from Bear Lake. Lastly, 

 the fourth error is regarding the famous great lake of the Eskimo, 

 to which various openings into the Arctic Ocean were attributed, 

 besides one outlet in the mouths of the Mackenzie and another in 

 the Anderson River. It is now known that this lake (the size of 

 which has been considerably diminished) has but one outlet, the 

 river " Natowdja," a direct tributary of the Arctic Ocean. 



I also made, in 1879, a complete survey of the course of 

 the Slave River from the great lake of the same name to that of 

 Athabasca, in order to complete my former work on the Mackenzie ; 

 and it is remarkable that, although I had no map to refer to, and 

 no other instrument than a compass, the result agreed almost 

 exactly with Franklin's route-map of 1820, except as regards 

 some islands, which either escaped his observation or have been 

 exposed since his journey, some winter-portages that he never 

 crossed, and a few bends in the river which he probably passed at 

 night-time. 



Above the rapids formed by the Caribou range, where that 

 range leaves the left bank and turns off towards the east, along 

 the course of the great Des Seins River, or " Thou-bau-desse," * 

 the Slave Biver crosses a flat plain covered with inextricable 

 forests, apparently reclaimed by degrees by the sedimentary 

 deposits of its muddy waters. This river has • no sandy shores. 

 Its muddy banks are constantly washed off on one side to be depos- 

 ited on the other. At times they give way, and the current, 



* This river, a southern affluent of the Great Slave Lake, is apparently- 

 represented on M. Petitot's map by the" T'al'tsan-Desse"or Yellow Knives 

 River. The name used in the above text seems to agree with the " Thu- 

 wu-desseh " of the map of Back's " Narrative " (1836), which enters the 

 Slave Lake to the east of the mouth of the Slave River. 



