244 SECOND JOURNEY TO THE 



another large river, to which they gave the 

 name of Clarence : they found among the 

 drift timber on the beach a pine-tree, seven 

 feet and a quarter in girth and thirty-six 

 feet long, and many others were seen of not 

 much inferior size, which must have grown 

 considerably to the southward. 



From the moment the expedition left the 

 mouth of the Mackenzie River scarcely a 

 day passed that the atmosphere was not, at 

 some portion of it, so loaded with fog as to 

 hide every object that was distant only a 

 few miles, and sometimes so dense as to 

 prevent them from seeing one end of the 

 boat from the other. This state of the air 

 is undoubtedly, of all others, the most 

 hazardous for boat navigation in an icy sea. 

 On the former expedition to the eastward of 

 the Coppermine River they had generally 

 clear weather ; here a clear blue sky was a 

 rare phenomenon. Captain Franklin asks, 

 " whence arises this difference ?" and an- 

 swers it, as we think, satisfactorily enough. 

 By reason of the low and swampy land that 

 lies between the Rocky Mountains and the 



