db2 Thirty Years 
Frida ‘The night was cold, and at day-light on the 
7th the thermometer ‘indicated 36°, Embarking at 
four a.nt, we sailed down the river for two hours, when 
our progress was arrested by the shallowness of the 
water. Having endeavored, without effect, to drag 
the boats over the flat, we remounted the stream to 
examine an opening to the westward, which we had 
passed. On reaching the opening we found the cur- 
rent setting through it into the Mackenzie, by whic} 
we knew that it could not afford a passage to the sea, 
but we pulled up it a little way, in the hope of ob- 
taining a view over the surrounding low grounds from 
the top of an Esquimaux house which we saw before 
us.. A low fog, which had prevailed all the morning, 
cleared away, and we discovered that the stream we 
had now ascended issued from-a chain of lakes lying 
betwixt us and the western hills, which were about 
six miles distant, the whole intervening country be- 
tween the hills, and the Mackenzie being flat. 
After obtaining an observation for longitude in 136° 
19’ W., and taking the bearing of several remarkable 
points of the Rocky Mountain range, we returned to 
the Mackenzie, and passing the shallows which had 
before impeded us, by taking only half the-boats’ car- 
goes over at a time, we came in sight of the mouth of 
the river. Whilst the crews were stowing the boats, 
I obtained an observation for latitude in 68° 53’ N., 
