nt
of the American Continent. It was called Cape Bathurst, in honour of the
Right Honourable the Earl of Bathurst, and the islands lying off it were
named after George Baillie, Esq., of the Colonial Office. I could not
account in any other way for the comparative freshness of the sheet of
water we had left, than by supposing that a sand-bank extended from Cape
Dalhousie to Baillie's Islands, impeding the communication with the sea,
and this notion was supported by a line of heavy ice which was seen both
from Cape Bathurst and Cape Dalhousie, in the direction of the supposed
bar, and apparently aground.

Taking for granted that the accounts we received from the natives were
(as our own observations led us to believe) correct, Esquimaux Lake is a
very extensive and curious piece of water. The Indians say that it
reaches to within four days' march of Fort Good Hope; and the Esquimaux
informed us that it extends from Point Encounter to Cape Bathurst, thus
ascribing to it an extent from north to south of more than one hundred
and forty miles, and from east to west of one hundred and fifty. It is
reported to be full of islands, to be every where brackish; and, besides
its communication with the eastern branch of the Mackenzie, to receive
two other large rivers. If a conjecture may be hazarded about the
original formation of a lake which we had so few opportunities of
examining, it seems probable that the alluvial matters brought down by
the Mackenzie, and other rivers, have gradually formed a barrier of
islands and shoals, which, by preventing the free access of the tide,
enables the fresh water to maintain the predominance behind it. The
action of the waves of the sea has a tendency to increase the height of
the barrier, while the currents of the rivers and ebb-tide preserve the
depth of the lake. A great formation of wood-coal will, I doubt not, be
ultimately formed by the immense quantities of drift-timber annually
deposited on the borders of Esquimaux Lake.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] The ridge-poles were omitted in the section by mistake.

CONTINUATION OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE EASTERN DETACHMENT.

CHAPTER III.

Double Cape Bathurst--Whales--Bituminous-shale Cliffs on Fire--Enter
Franklin Bay--Heavy Gale--Peninsula of Cape Parry--Perforated
Rock--Detention at Cape Lyon by Wind--Force of an Esquimaux Arrow--Meet
with heavy Ice--Pass Union and Dolphin Straits--Double Cape Krusenstern,
and enter George the Fourth's Corona