264 Mackenzie's journey to the pacific. [1792. 



farther west must, of course, be situated any passage or sea con- 

 necting the Pacific with the part of the ocean into which both those 

 rivers were supposed to empty ; and the existence of any such 

 passage east of Bering's Strait became, in consequence, much less 

 probable. 



In his second expedition, Mackenzie quitted Fort Chipewyan on 

 the 10th of October, 1792, and ascended the Unjigah or Peace 

 River, from the Athabasca Lake, with much difficulty, to the foot 

 of the Rocky Mountains, where he spent the winter in camp. In 

 June of the following year, he resumed his voyage up the same 

 stream, which he traced, in a south-west direction, through the 

 mountains, to its springs, near the 54th degree of latitude, distant 

 more than nine hundred miles from its mouth. Within half a mile 

 of one of these springs, he embarked on another stream, called by the 

 natives Tacoutchee-Tessee, down which he floated in canoes about 

 two hundred and fifty miles ; then, leaving the river, he proceeded 

 westward about two hundred miles over land, and, on the 22d of 

 July, 1793, he reached the Pacific Ocean, at the mouth of an inlet, 

 in the latitude of 52 degrees 20 minutes, which had, a few weeks 

 previous, been surveyed by Vancouver, and been named the Cascade 

 Canal. Having thus accomplished a passage across the American 

 continent at its widest part, he retraced his steps to Fort Chipewyan, 

 where he arrived on the 24th of August. 



By this expedition, Mackenzie ascertained beyond all doubt the 

 fact of the extension of the American continent, on the Pacific 

 Ocean, undivided by any water passage, as far north as the latitude 

 of 52 degrees 20 minutes ; which fact was, about the same time, 

 rendered nearly, though not absolutely, certain by the examinations 

 of Vancouver. The River Tacoutchee-Tessee was supposed to be 

 the upper part of the Columbia, until 1812, when it was traced to 

 its mouth, in the Strait of Fuca, near the 49th degree of latitude ; 

 and since that time it has been called Frasei-'s River. 



The discoveries of Mackenzie, taken in conjunction with the re- 

 sults of Vancouver's surveys, strengthened the conclusion, at which 

 Cook had arrived, that the American continent extended uninter- 

 ruptedly north-westward to Bering's Strait ; and Mackenzie him- 

 self conceived, though certainly without sufficient grounds, that he 

 had clearly determined in the negative the long-agitated question 

 as to the practicability of a voyage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 

 around the northern shores of America. For the advancement of 

 British interests in the North Pacific, he recommended that the 



