INTRODUCTION. Xilk 
descending the Slave River, crossed Great Slave Lake, and ascended 
the Yellow-knife River, to the banks of Winter Lake, situated in 
latitude 643°, and in the 113th degree of longitude, which it reached 
on the 19th day of August. A winter of nine months’ duration was 
spent at this place in a log building, which was named Fort Enter- 
prise; and in the beginning of June, 1821, while the snow was still 
lying on the ground, and the ice covering the river, the Expedition 
resumed its march. After the baggage and canoes had been dragged 
over ice and snow for one hundred and twenty miles to the north 
end of Point Lake, we embarked on the Coppermine River on the Ist 
of July, and on the 2Ist of the same month reached the Arctic Sea, 
when, turning to the eastward, we performed a coasting voyage 
of six hundred and twenty-six statute miles, to Point Turnagain, 
which is, owing to the deep indentations of the coast, only six 
degrees and a half of longitude to the eastward of the mouth of the 
Coppermine River. The rapid approach of winter now rendered it 
necessary to abandon the further pursuit of the enterprise; and on 
the 22d of August we retraced our course as far as Hood’s River, 
which we ascended for a short way, and then set out to travel overland 
to Point Lake, on our way back to Fort Enterprise. Winter, clothed 
with all the terrors of an arctic climate, overtook the party early in 
September: it suffered dreadfully from famine, no supplies were 
obtained at Fort Enterprise, the majority of the party perished, 
and the survivors were on the verge of the grave, when the 
Indians brought supplies of provision, and conducted them to Fort. 
Providence, the nearest of the Hudson Bay Company’s posts. The 
want of the means of carriage,.even at the most flattering periods of 
this disastrous journey, prevented us from attempting to preserve any 
bulky objects of natural history ; but all the plants gathered previous 
to our reaching the mouth of the Coppermine River were saved, 
having been given in charge to five of the party who were sent back 
from: thence. Those collected on the sea-coast, after having been 
carried for many days through the snow, were at length, on our 
strength being completely exhausted, reluctantly abandoned. ‘The 
