As is the usual custom at the Hudson's Bay
Company's inland trading posts, all provisions
were given gratis; and they were much more
gratefully received by the Esquimaux than
by the more southerly and more favoured
red man.

We had still on hand half of our three
months' stock of pemican, and a sufficiency
of ammunition to provide for the wants of
another winter. We were all in excellent
health, and could get as many dogs as we
required: so that (D.V.) there was little
doubt that a second attempt to complete the
survey would be successful; but I now
thought that I had a higher duty to attend
to, that duty being to communicate, with as
little loss of time as possible, the melancholy
tidings which I had heard, and thereby save
the risk of more valuable lives being
jeopardised in a fruitless search, in a direction
where there was not the slightest prospect of
obtaining any information. I trust this will
be deemed a sufficiently good reason for my
return.

The summer was extremely cold and backward;
we could not leave Repulse Bay until
the fourth of August, and on the sixth had
much difficulty in rounding Cape Hope. From
thence, as far as Cape Fullerton, the strait
between Southampton Island and the main
shore was fully packed with ice, which gave
us great trouble. South of Cape Fullerton
we got into open water. On the evening of
the nineteenth instant, calms and head winds
much retarded us, so that we did not enter
Churchill River until the morning of the
twenty-eighth of August. There we were
detained all day by a storm of wind. My
good interpreter, William Ouligback, was
landed, and before bidding him farewell, I
presented him with a very handsomely
mounted hunting knife, intrusted to me by
Captain Sir George Back for his former
travelling companion, Ouligback; but as the
old man was dead, I took the liberty of giving
it to his son, as an inducement to future good
conduct should his services be again required.

A three days' run brought us to York
Factory, at which place we landed all well
on the forenoon of the 31st of August. I
am happy to say that the conduct of my
men, under circumstances often very trying,
was generally speaking extremely good and
praiseworthy; and although their wages were
higher than those of any party who have
hitherto been employed on boat expeditions,
I thought it advisable, after consulting with
Chief Factor William Mactavish, to give each
a small gratuity, varying the amount according
to merit.

In conclusion, I have to express my regret
that I was unable, on this occasion, to bring
to a successful termination an expedition
which I had myself planned and projected;
but in extenuation of my failure, I may
mention that I was met by an accumulation of
obstacles, beyond the usual ones of storms
and rough ice, which my former experience
in Arctic travelling had not led me to
anticipate.

CHIP.

PULP.

THE possibility of making paper from
anything but rags has only been mooted since
the rag-famine set in. It was amongst the
good old manufacturing prejudices, that pulp
for paper-making could only be formed from
flax or cotton which had been spun, woven,
made into garments or napery, worn out,
cast off, had the best price given for it at the
Black Doll; picked, sorted, washed, torn to
tatters, and smashed into pulp at the mill.
The manufacturing mind has only recently
become awake to the probability that pulp
might be made out of fibre that has never
passed through the rag-shop.

The idea of making paper from raw flax
is neither new nor startling At present
the flax plant is only used for two
purposes — its straw is reduced to fibre, and
then spun and woven into textile fabrics;
and its seed, besides propagating it, yields
painter's oil. Yet the same plant can never
be used for both purposes. To produce
good flax, it must be cut down before the
seed is ripe; and, when fully matured to
yield oil, the straw fibre cannot be spun.
But it can be converted into the best possible
pulp. Unlimited supplies of this straw is
wasted in India, whence it might be
imported into this country; and, mixed with
inferior cotton and linen rags to soften and economise
it, be converted into a tougher, whiter,
and cheaper paper than we can at present
afford for common use. On such paper the
second edition of the "Times" newspaper of
Monday the seventeenth of July last was
printed.

There are besides, coarser varieties of the
flax-plant that might be cultivated to yield
paper-pulp of the first quality. The experiment
has been tried with a success which proves that
vast expanses of marshy lands in this country,
and a large proportion of the Irish soil, not
now productive, might be made to grow
inferior species of flax convertible into unlimited
supplies of pulp. There is only one barrier to
the immediate solution of the great paper
difficulty. A few gentlemen with capital
and enterprise have associated themselves
for the supply of flax pulp to paper makers,
and some of the principal paper-makers have
agreed to become their customers. Their
object being, however, one of those which can
only be carried out on a large and expansive
scale, it is beyond the means of "a few"
gentlemen. With broad acres to purchase
or to rent, with mills and machinery to
provide; or, with vast purchases to make of the
coarser flax from the Indian, Australian, or
New Zealand markets, the capital required
could only be commanded by an extensive
company; and, whoever enters upon the