A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 15: Forming A Complete History Of The Origin And Progress Of Navigation, Discovery, And Commerce, By Sea And Land, From The Earliest Ages To The Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 15: Forming A Complete History Of The Origin And Progress Of Navigation, Discovery, And Commerce, By Sea And Land, From The Earliest Ages To The Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
To leave no room for a variety of opinion, however, he was ordered to
repeat the voyage the ensuing summer, in the same sloop, and Mr Norton,
in a cutter, was appointed to attend him. By the favour of the governor
and committee of the company, the journals of Captain Christopher, and
of Mr Norton, and Captain Christopher's chart of the inlet, have been
readily communicated. From these authentic documents, it appears that
the search and examination of Chesterfield's Inlet was now completed. It
was found to end in a fresh-water lake, at the distance of about one
hundred and seventy miles from the sea. This lake was found also to be
about twenty-one leagues long, and from five to ten broad, and to be
completely closed up on every side, except to the west, where there was
a little rivulet; to survey the state of which, Mr Norton and the crew
of the cutter having landed, and marched up the country, saw that it
soon terminated in three falls, one above another, and not water for a
small boat over them; and ridges, mostly dry from side to side, for
five, or six miles higher.
Thus ends Chesterfield's Inlet, and all Mr Ellis's expectations of a
passage through it to the western ocean. The other parts of the coast,
from latitude 62°, to the South Point of Main, within which limits hopes
were also entertained of finding a passage, have, of late years, been
thoroughly explored. It is here that Pistol Bay is situated; which the
author who has writ last in this country, on the probability of a
north-west passage,[42] speaks of as the only remaining part of Hudson's
Bay where this western communication may exist. But this has been also
examined; and, on the authority of Captain Christopher, we can assure
the reader, that there is no inlet of any consequence in all that part
of the coast. Nay, he has, in an open boat, sailed round the bottom of
what is called Pistol Bay, and, in stead of a passage to a western sea,
found it does not run above three or four miles inland.
[Footnote 42: Printed for Jeffreys, in 1768. His words are, "There
remains then to be searched for the discovery of a passage, the opening
called Pistol Bay, in Hudson's Bay," p. 122--D]
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