INTRODUCTION. 
xlvii 
inftru&ed their Governor of Prince of Wales’s Fort, to fend 
a proper perfon to travel by land, under the efcort of fome 
trufty Northern Indians, with orders to proceed to this 
famous river, to take an accurate Purvey of its courfe, and 
to trace it to the fea, into which it empties itfelf. Mr. 
Hearne, a young gentleman in their fervice, who, having 
been an officer in the Navy, was well qualified to make ob- 
fervations for fixing the longitude and latitude, and make 
drawings of the country he fliould pafs through, and of 
the river which he was to examine, was appointed for this 
fervice. 
Accordingly, he fet out from Fort Prince of Wales, on 
Churchill River, in latitude 58° 50', on the 7th of Decem¬ 
ber 1770 ; and the whole of his proceedings, from time to 
time, are faithfully preferved in his written Journal. The 
publication of this would not be an unacceptable prefent to 
the world, as it draws a plain artlefs picture of the favage 
modes of life, the fcanty means of fubfiftence, and indeed 
of the lingular wretchednefs, in every refpecft, of the vari¬ 
ous tribes, who, without fixed habitations, pafs their mi- 
ferable lives, roving throughout the dreary deferts, and 
over the frozen lakes of the immenfe tra(ft of continent 
through which Mr. Hearne paffied, and which he may be 
faid to have added to the geography of the globe. His ge-* 
neral courfe was to the North Weft. In the month of June 
1771, being then at a place called Conge catha wha Cbaga , he 
had, to ufe his own words, two good obfervations , both by 
meridian and double altitudes , tbe mean of which determines 
this place to be in latitude 68° 46' North, and, by account , 
in longitude 24 0 2' Weft of Churchill River. On the 13th. 
of July (having left Conge catha wha Cbaga on the 2d, 
and travelling Drill to the Weft of North) he reached the 
- 1 Copper- 
