R. Bell — Rising of the Land around Hudson Bay. 227 



librium. Two inscriptions which he saw on the rocks, namely, 

 " May 25th and May 27th, 1753," were about seven feet above 

 the present high tide and he thinks these were cut by men 

 standing on the ice. This, however, does not prove much, for 

 the men were quite as likely to have sat as stood while engrav- 

 ing these inscriptions. As the tide still enters the cove and 

 keeps it full of water, the average relative level of its ice to 

 the rocks surrounding it may not have differed much from 

 what it is now. When I visited Fort Prince of Wales in 

 1879, oak planks brought from England while the fort was 

 still occupied as well as timbers of native wood, all charred by 

 Lepeyrouse's lire, were found stranded far out of reach of the 

 present tides and still in perfect preservation. On the occasion 

 referred to, I met at the " _N"ew Fort " children of some of the 

 people who were living at the " Old Fort " when it was cap- 

 tared bj r the French, and from them some information could 

 be obtained as to the conditions at that time. We have, 

 besides, the description and illustrations in the book by Samuel 

 Hearne, who was then in charge of the place. Any light 

 which these accounts may throw on the state of matters then 

 as compared with the present time, points in the direction of 

 some elevation having taken place. 



Among the photographs which I took around Fort Prince 

 of Wales in 1879 is one which shows strips of dry land grasses 

 alternating with little parallel ridges of gravel thrown up by 

 the waves and now above the highest tide-mark, but below the 

 level of the spot which was pointed out to me as the landing 

 place of Lepeyrouse. The ground on which the fort stands 

 was an island during high tide at the time the place was 

 occupied and a bridge was thrown across the narrowest part of 

 the little separating channel to connect the island with the main 

 land. This channel is now entirely dry. 



If anything further were wanting to show that an elevation 

 of the land is now going on in this region we have some direct 

 personal evidence in the lifetime of the witness himself in sup- 

 port of the facts already cited. About twenty years ago, a 

 very aged Indian, who was said to have " seen more than a hun- 

 dred winters," and who was quietly passing the last years of his 

 extraordinarily long life at Norway House, told me in presence 

 of the factor, Mr. Roderick Ross, and the other gentlemen of 

 that establishment that he had, when a boy, witnessed the land- 

 ing of Lepeyrouse and the destruction of Fort Prince of Wales. 

 He gave graphic details of every circumstance, which agreed 

 perfectly with Lepeyrouse's own account, and he answered all 

 my questions on other points entirely satisfactorily and with- 

 out a moment's hesitation. Among other things, he mentioned 

 that the spot where the Frenchmen's boats landed was quite 



