CHURCHILL AND NELSON RIVERS. 23 C 



(1.) 58° 44', 54"-61 



(2.) 58° 44' 22"-80 



(3.) 58° 44' 31"-70 



(4.) 58° 44/ 55"-20 



(5.) 58° 44' 50"-90 



Mean 58° 44' 43"-04 



The mouth of the river is about 4' further north. I also ascertained 

 that the variation of the compass at this locality is at present about X ar j^,^ ,n a sf 

 11°E., but on the river, at twenty-seven miles southward of the mouth, 

 I found it to be only 6° 30'. 



Completion of Track Survey of the Nelson River. 



On the 27 th of August I left York Factory, and camped on Point of Ascent of the 

 Marsh, or the extremity of Beacon Point, between Hayes and Nelson Nelson Rlver - 

 rivers, and the next morning started to ascend the latter to Lake 

 Winnipeg. My report for 1878 contains a description of the lower 

 part of the Nelson, which was explored during that season. It will 

 not be necessary, therefore, again to describe this section. In regard 

 to the question of the navigation of this stretch of the river, it was ^rt'ofrfver 

 stated that the shallowest place discovered by my soundings was at the 

 head of the tide, abreast of " Cillam's " or the Lower Seal Island. When Soundings, 

 at this locality again, last August, I carefully sounded the whole width 

 of the river and found the deepest water to be ten feet, as before. The 

 bottom consists of shingle, resting apparently on boulder clay, which Seal I slands - 

 here forms both banks of the river and the Seal Islands. " Gillam's " 

 Island and the south bank opposite to it were found, by barometer, to 

 have each a height of eighty feet, while the north bank rises to upwards . 

 of 100 feet above the river. The boulders and the pebbles of the drift boulders. 

 in this neighbourhood are made up largely of the rocks of the supposed 

 equivalent of the Nipigon series of the east side of Hudson's Bay. 

 Specimens of almost every variety of these strata may be picked up 

 along the banks in this part of the river. Three miles above the Seal 

 Islands I found a large piece of white quartz exactly like that of the 

 veins in the grey quartzite of the mouth of the Churchill. It also 

 contained scales of specular iron precisely similar to those of the 

 Churchill veins. At " The Cache," which is on the north side of the 

 river opposite Deer's Island, or sixteen miles from the Seal Islands, churchm 

 there are numerous large and a few immense angular and partially 11 

 rounded blocks of this grey quartzite. One of them contains some 

 white quartz pebbles similar to those occasionally observed in the rock 

 in place at Churchill. The accompanying illustration, from a photograph 

 taken on the north-west of the river at sixty-three miles from Point of to^Nelwn. 



