J. B. TyrreU-^Rising of land around Hudson Bay. 203 



It is difficult to understand Dr. Bell's statement that Sloops 

 Cove is " a small elliptical pond (?) connecting with the lagoon 

 by a very narrow entrance, through which the water barely 

 passes at high tide," for in the gap at the mouth of the cove 

 there are now four feet of water at the top of spring tide, but it 

 is quite probable that before the dam was built and the gravel 

 bar was formed the entrance may have been considerably 

 deeper. Robson's map does not show the gravel bar at either 

 end, and if they did not exist in 1746 the line soft silt that now 

 forms the bottom would not have been there either, for the 

 tide rushing through the gap would have scoured it down to 

 the hard till or rock. Perhaps the building of the dam at the 

 mouth of the cove, preventing this tidal scour, has been the 

 chief reason why it has since silted up. 



It is difficult to find a good wintering place for a small 

 craft in Churchill harbor, as the ice may shift and break the 

 anchor chains and moorings, and carry the ship on the top of 

 large boulders ; and since such a ship would be perfectly safe 

 when once it had been floated into Sloops Cove, considerable 

 exertion would doubtless be made to get it there. In addition 

 to the sloops of the Hudson Bay Company, local tradition has 

 it that the Furnace and Discovery^ two small ships sent to 

 look for the northwest passage, here spent the winter of 1T41- 

 42, and the words Furnace c& Discovery 1741 cut in the 

 face of the smooth rock on the north side of the cove, would 

 indicate that this tradition is correct. The Furnace, the larg- 

 est of these two vessels, is said by Forster to have been a 

 "sloop or bombketch" and probably had a draft of about 

 eight or nine feet, which, in such a wide craft, could be light- 

 ened to six feet or less. That they were able to take the ships 

 into and out of dock at high tide only is clearly shown by 

 Robson's map, and also by the statement of Captain Middleton 

 of the Furnace, that they on "June 9th and 10th (spring tide 

 after the full moon of June 6th, old style) got the ship out of 

 the dock and moored her." * 



If the deepest part of the mouth of the cove can now be 

 seen, and if the ships required six feet of water to float them 

 into it, there would here be evidence of the rise of the land to 

 the extent of two feet in the last century and a half, but, as 

 neither of these two points is certain, the evidence is hardly 

 worth considering at present. 



On the rocky walls of the cove, planed smooth by a glacier 

 from the southwest, many names have been engraved, and now 

 appear as fresh as if cut but yesterday. Among these the one 

 of greatest historic interest is that of SI. Ilearne, the discov- 

 erer of the Coppermine River, who, on Wednesday, July ye 1, 



*Dobbs' Hudson Bay, p. 17. 



