The following June they descended the Coppermine, where, in shooting the rapids, they “had to pull for their lives, to keep out of the suction of the precipices, along whose base the breakers raged and foamed, with overwhelming fury. Shortly before noon, we came in sight of Escape Rapid, of Franklin; and a glance at the overhanging cliffs told us that there was no alternative but to run down with full cargo.” “In an instant,” continues Simpson, “we were in the vortex; and, before we were aware, my boat was borne toward an isolated rock, which the boiling surge almost concealed. To clear it on the outside was no longer possible; our only chance of safety was to run between it and the lofty eastern cliff. The word was passed and every breath was hushed. A stream which dashed down upon us over the brow of the precipice, more than one hundred feet in height, mingled with the spray that whirled upwards from the rapid, forming a terrific shower-bath. The pass was about eight feet wide, and the error of a single foot on either side would have been instant destruction. As, guided by Sinclair’s consummate skill, the boat shot safely through those jaws of death, an involuntary cheer arose. “Our next impulse was to turn round to view the fate of our comrades behind. They had profited by the peril we incurred, and kept without the treacherous rock in time.” Hardly had they reached the coast before they were stopped by the ice, and hopelessly delayed many days. The season was rapidly advancing, and yet no real work had been accomplished. On the 20th of August, Simpson and seven men started on a ten days’ walk to the eastward of Boathaven. Progress was both difficult and discouraging. On the 23d they reached an elevated cape, beyond which further progress was impossible. Of this scene Simpson writes:— “I ascended the height, from whence a vast and splendid project burst suddenly upon me. The sea, as if transformed by enchantment, rolled its free waves at my feet, and beyond the reach of vision to the eastward. Islands of various shapes and sizes overspread its surface, and the northern land terminated to the eye in a bold and lofty cape, bearing _east-northeast_, thirty or forty miles distant, while the continental coast trended away southeast. I stood, in fact, on a remarkable headland, at the eastern outlet of an ice-obstructed strait. On the extensive land to the northward, I bestowed the name of our most gracious sovereign, Queen Victoria. Its eastern visible extremity I called Cape Pelly, in complement of the governor of the Hudson Bay Company.”