FRESH DISCOVERIES. 373 



Polar S^a in lat. 68° 2' N., and long. 104° 15' W., was discovered and named 

 on the 31st July. Green flats marked by small lakes and rocky knolls ex- 

 tended along its banks. Detained for four days by a heavy crush of ice that 

 encumbered a headland in long. 103° 36' W., the explorers resumed their 

 voyage on the 5th August, after which date the weather continued remark- 

 ably fine for several days. The coast, broken by a succession of bays, and 

 studded by numberless islands, edged away south-eastward as far as Ogden 

 Bay, in long. 101° 15'. From this point it was found to curve round to the 

 north-east, and M'Loughlin Bay, in long. 99° 15' W., was reached on the 8th. 

 On the 10th the party pushed on north-eastward among islands, and on the 

 evening entered a strait running to the southward of east. Here the rapid 

 rush of the tide from the east assured the leaders that they were now enter- 

 ing an open sea leading to Back's Great Fish River, and on the 11th they 

 entered upon the wide expanse of water, the existence of which they had in- 

 ferred from the swell of the tide. " On the 13th," writes Simpson, " we ran 

 rapidly south-east and east, and, at the end of fifteen or twenty miles, got 

 clear of the countless islands that had all along, from my last year's pedes- 

 trian limit, embarrassed us beyond measure, and hailed with real transport 

 the open sea. . . . On doubling a very sharp point, that offered a lee 

 spot for the boats, I landed, and saw before me a sandy desert. It was 

 Back's ' Ogle Point ' that we had at length reached." Dease and Simpson had 

 now reached the estuary of Great Fish Eiver, and thus accomplished the 

 main objects of their three years' expedition. They had at last, in this latest 

 discovery, presented the freedom of the Polar shores to the navigators of all 

 succeeding time. 



On the 16th the discoverers steered with flags flying to Montreal Island, 

 and landed in a small bay, on which Captain Back had encamped on his 

 return from Point Ogle to the Great Fish River. Directed by M'Kay, who, 

 it will be remembered, was one of Back's party, Simpson's men soon found 

 a cache among the rocks, comprising "two bags of pemmican, several 

 pounds of chocolate, two canisters of gunpowder, a box of percussion caps, 

 and an old japanned tin vasculum, including three large fish-hooks." The 

 pemmican and chocolate were both rotten. The minor articles Messrs 

 Dease and Simpson took possession of, " as memorials," says Simpson, " of 

 our having breakfasted on the identical spot where the tent of our gallant 

 though less successful precursor had stood that very day five years before." 



What now remained to be done 1 "All the objects," writes the author 

 and the hero of this story of discovery, "for which the expedition was so 

 generously instituted, were now accomplished ; but Mr Dease and myself 

 were not quite satisfied. We had determined the northern limits of America 

 to the westward of Great Fish River ; it still remained a question whether 

 Boothia Felix might not be united to the continent on the other side of the 



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