Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/367

348 which lies but six leagues off the coast, and extends from lat. 57 to 54, supposed to be the same hinted at in Captain Davis's second voyage."

P. 577, [under date] "Tuesday, 31st Dec. 1754. * * * The schooner Argo Captain Swaine, is arrived at Philadelphia, after a second unsuccessful attempt to discover a northwest passage. (See an account of the first voyage, p. 46. See also p. 542.)"

[On that page, 542, there is merely a list of all voyages to discover a north-west passage, &c. previous to that of the Argo.—Hall.]

Macpherson ("The Annals of Commerce, Manufactures, Fisheries, and Navigation," in 4 vols. London, 1805, vol. iii.) says:—

"This summer [Sept. 1772.—H.] some gentlemen in Virginia subscribed for the equipment of a vessel to be sent upon an attempt for a north-west passage. Under their auspices. Captain Wilder sailed in the brig Diligence to the lat. 69° 11′, in a large bay which he supposed hitherto unknown. He reported that, from the course of the tides, he thought it very probable that there is a passage, but that it is seldom free of ice, and therefore impassable. But an impassable passage (if such language may be allowed) is no passage for ships. But the impossibility of finding such a passage, in any navigable sea, was, at the same time, further demonstrated by the return in this summer of Mr. Heame, a naval officer then in the service of the Hudson Bay Company," &c. &c.

[Following this is matter that refers to the information the Indians gave Hearne.—Hall.]

The Bark Kitty, of Newcastle, England, sailed from London for Hudson's Bay on the 21st of June, 1859, and was wrecked on the ice September 5th in the same year. The wife of the captain, writing to an arctic voyager with the hope that he might procure some tidings of her husband, thus states the material facts, as reported by survivors who had returned to England. After mentioning the date of the shipwreck, she continues as follows:—

"The crew, having sufficient time to provide themselves with every necessary they thought prudent to take into their boats, landed on Saddleback Island, and remained there four days, during which time they met several natives. They agreed to separate themselves into two boats, and to proceed up the straits in hope of meeting the Company's ships coming down. My husband, Captain Ellis, with ten men in the long-boat, and