were wounded, but none killed. On two
occasions (the first and twenty-seventh), that
beautiful but rare appearance of the clouds
near the sun, with three fringes of pink and
green, following the outline of the cloud, was
seen, and I may add that the same splendid
phenomenon was frequently observed during
the spring, and was generally followed by a
day or two of fine weather.

During the latter part of the month,
preparations were being made for our spring
journeys. A carpenter's workshop was built
of snow, and our sledges were taken to pieces,
reduced to as light a weight as possible,
and then reunited more securely than
before. The mean temperature of February,
corrected for error of thermometer, was
thirty-nine degrees below zero. The highest
and lowest being twenty degrees and fifty-
three degrees.

On the first of March a female deer in
fine condition was shot, and on the ninth and
tenth two more were killed. Three men
were absent some days during this month, in
search of Esquimaux, from whom we wished
to obtain dogs. They went as far as the head
of Ross Bay, but found no traces of these
people.

On the fourteenth I started with three
men hauling sledges with provisions, to be
placed in " cache" for the long spring journey.
Owing to the stormy state of the weather we
got no farther than Cape Lady Pelly, on the
most northerly point of which our stores were
placed, under a heap of large stones, secure
from any animal except man or the bear.
We returned on the twenty-fourth, the
distance walked together being a hundred and
seventy miles.

On the thirty-first of March, leaving three
men in charge of the boat and stores, I set
out with the other four, including the
interpreter, with the view of tracing the west
coast of Boothia, from the Castor and Pollux
River to Bellot Strait. The weight of our
provisions, &c., with those deposited on the
way, amounted to eight hundred and sixty-
five pounds, an ample supply for sixty-five
days.

The route followed for part of the journey
being exactly the same as that of spring,
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, it is
unnecessary to describe it. During the two
first days, although we did not travel more
than fifteen miles per day, the men found the
work extremely hard, and as I perceived that
one of them (a fine, active young fellow, but a
light weight) would be unable to keep pace
with the others, he was sent back, and
replaced by Mistegan, a very able man, and an
experienced sledge-hauler. More than a day
was lost in making this exchange, but there
was still abundance of time to complete our
work, if not opposed by more than common
obstacles.

On the sixth of April we arrived at our
provision cache, and found it all safe. Having
placed the additional stores on the
sledges, which made those of the men weigh
more than a hundred and sixty pounds each,
and my own about a hundred and ten pounds,
we travelled seven miles further, then built
a snow house on the ice two miles from shore.
We had passed among much rough ice, but
hitherto the drift banks of snow, by lying in
the same direction in which we were travelling,
made the walking tolerably good. As
we advanced to the northward, however,
these crossed our track (showing that the
prevailing winter gales had been from the
westward), and together with stormy weather,
impeded us so much that we did not reach
Colville Bay until the tenth. The position of
our snow house was in latitude sixty-eight
degrees thirteen minutes five seconds north,
longitude by chronometer eighty-eight
degrees fourteen minutes fifty-one seconds west,
the variation of the compass being eighty-six
degrees twenty minutes west. From this
place it was my intention to strike across
land as straight as possible for the Castor and
Pollux River.

The eleventh was so stormy that we could
not move, and the next day, after placing en
cache two days' provisions, we had walked
only six miles in a westerly direction, when a
gale of wind compelled us to get under
shelter. The weather improved in the evening,
and having the benefit of the full moon,
we started again at a few minutes to eight
P.M. Our course at first was the same as it
had been in the morning, but the snow soon
became so soft and so deep that I turned
more to the northward in search of firmer
footing. The walking was excessively
fatiguing, and would have been so even to
persons travelling unencumbered, as we sank
at every step, nearly ankle deep in snow.
Eight and a half miles were accomplished in
six and a half hours, at the end of which as
we required some rest, a small snow house
was built, and we had some tea and frozen
pemican.

After resting three hours we resumed our
march, and by making long detours, found
the snow occasionally hard enough to support
our weight. At thirty minutes to noon on
the thirteenth, our day's journey terminated
in latitude sixty-eight degrees twenty-three
minutes thirty seconds north, longitude
eighty-nine degrees three minutes fifty-three
seconds west, variation of compass eighty-
three degrees thirty minutes west. At a
mile and a half from our bivouac, we had
crossed the arm of a lake of considerable
extent, but the country around was so flat,
and so completely covered with snow, that
its limits could not be easily defined, and our
snow hut was on the borders of another lake
apparently somewhat smaller.

A snow storrn of great violence raged
during the whole of the fourteenth, which did
not prevent us from making an attempt to
get forward. After persevering two and a