XV1 INTRODUCTION. 
interesting, as having~ been made principally on a coast skirting the 
« northern termination of the Rocky Mountains. The Expedition 
returned to England the following summer; one division of it by 
way of Canada and New York, and the other by Hudson’s Bay. I 
passed the early part of the winter at Great Slave Lake, where I 
obtained specimens of all the fur-bearing animals of that quarter, and 
afterwards travelled on the snow to Carlton-house on the Saskatche- 
wan, where, with the assistance of Mr. Drummond, who joined me 
there, specimens of the greatest part of the birds frequenting that 
district were procured in the spring. I met Sir John Franklin at 
Cumberland-house in June, 1827, and accompanied him to Canada by 
the same route by which we came out, except that we went by the 
east side of Lake Winipeg, thus completing the circuit of that lake, 
and that instead of crossing Lake Ontario, on our way to New York, 
we gained the Uttawas from Lake Huron, by the route of the French 
River, and descended it to Montreal, whence we travelled to New 
York by way of Lake Champlain. 
Having thus given in detail the routes of the other branches of the 
Expedition, it remains that I should mention the one pursued by 
Mr. Drummond, the Assistant Naturalist, to whose unrivalled skill in 
collecting, and indefatigable zeal, we are indebted for most of the 
insects, the greater part of the specimens of plants, and a considerable 
number of the quadrupeds and birds. This gentleman remained at 
Cumberiand-house in the year 1825, after the rest of the party had 
gone to the north, collecting plants during the month of July, and 
then ascended the Saskatchewan for six hundred and sixty miles, to 
Edmonton-house, performing much of the journey on foot, and 
amassing objects of natural history by the way. Leaving Edmonton- 
house on the 22d of September, he crossed a swampy and. thickly 
wooded country to Red Deer River, one of the branches of the Elk or 
Athapescow River, and along whose banks he travelled until he reached 
the Rocky Mountains, the ground being then covered with snow. 
Having explored the portage-road across the mountains to the 
Columbia River, for fifty miles, he hired an Indian hunter, with whom 
