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Dobbs and Middleton.

lying above ground close to the house. The longest liver was, according to the Esquimaux account, always employed in working iron into implements for them; probably he was the armourer or smith." The Hudson's Bay Company sent out a vessel in charge of one John Scroggs to search for these unfortunates. That captain appears to have spent his time in objects entirely foreign to his mission, and deserves no place among our heroes.

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A somewhat persistent, if not cantankerous, gentleman, named Arthur Dobbs, about this period worried the Hudson's Bay Company into organising certain northern expeditions. The company was for a long time exceedingly reserved in regard to the discoveries made by its servants, and further jealous of its profitable monopoly, fearing that interlopers might interfere with its commerce. Mr. Dobbs was, by dint of constant importunity and solicitation, the cause of more than one expedition being sent out. Captain Middleton was despatched in command of a navy vessel in 1741, and passed the winter in Churchill River, proceeding some distance northward, making apparently careful surveys, but no discovery of importance. Dobbs, on his return, publicly accused Middleton of acting treacherously toward the government, and of having taken a bribe of £5,000 from his old employers (the Hudson's Bay Company) not to make discoveries.

Reward Offered.

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The captain denied the bribe, but almost admitted having said that no one should be the wiser if he did make the north-west passage. The Lords of the Admiralty, after a detailed examination, were evidently not thoroughly convinced of Middleton's honesty of purpose, and the agitation made by Dobbs led to the passage of an Act of Parliament offering £20,000 for the discovery of a north-west route to the Pacific.

A public subscription was immediately set on foot, and an expedition organised. £10,000 was soon raised, a committee appointed, and two vessels, the Dobbs Galley and the California, were purchased. The command of the former devolved on Captain William Moor; that of the California on Captain Francis Smith. They left in the spring of 1746, and were absent one year and nearly five months, wintering near Fort York. In effect they accomplished nothing, although the narrative by Henry Ellis gives a very interesting account of life in the northern regions. The result was, however, to throw a damper on the ardour of the public, and for nearly thirty years we hear of no further English enterprise in this direction.

In 1769, Samuel Hearne, in the interests of the Hudson's Bay Company, attempted an exploration of the Coppermine River, named by the Indians Neetha-sansan-tessy (the distant metal river). The

Indians purposely delayed him in various ways, and he had to return. A second attempt was hardly more successful, although he was absent nine months from Fort Churchill. He persevered, and on his third journey, in 1770-1, reached the mouth of the river, although we hear nought of any discovery of minerals, which was the object of his mission.

Captain Cook's name lives, and will live, in connection with the geography of the whole world. Nevertheless we must, for the completeness of our narrative, mention his careful exploration of the American coast northward from Mount St. Elias, through Bering's Straits to Icy Cape, soon after which he lost his life at the hands of the then uncivilised people of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. Nor must we forget the travels of the brave and modest Mackenzie, who, in 1789, descended to the Arctic the great river which now bears his name.

CHAPTER VII.

The Polar Ocean-Russian Discoveries-The Two Unconquerable Capes-Siberian Coasts-Peter the Great-Vitus Bering's Voyages -Discovery of the Straits-Of the Aleutian Isles-Shipwreck and Scurvy-Death of Bering-The Ivory Islands-New SiberiaWrangell's Ice Journeys-Wrangell's Land.

HE exploration of the coast of the Polar Ocean from Bering's Straits to Nova Zembla is due to the Russians, whose vast domain extends far within the regions of the ice-king. "Those shores," says Mr. Markham, "are, perhaps, the most desolate on the whole circle of the threshold to the unknown region. The Siberian rivers, the Obi, the Yenisei, the Lena, the Indigirka and Kolyma,-rise in the Altai mountains, and flow, in their upper courses, through forests of tall trees. But, before they reach the Polar Ocean, they traverse a dreary region of frozen swamp, which is barely habitable, called the tundra. Here the land is frozen for many feet below the surface. The rivers, during times of flood, bring down vast quantities of uprooted trees, which line their banks in immense masses, and are eventually

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Russian Exploration.

carried into the Polar Sea, to be drifted away with the current which flows from east to west along the Siberian coast.

"The efforts of the Russians to double the extreme northern points of Siberia-Capes Taimyr and Chelyuskin, the latter in 77° 30′ N., have hitherto been unsuccessful. The Russians, in very early times, constantly went from Archangel to the mouth of the Obi, creeping along between the land and ice in the Sea of Kara, and usually hauling their boats, or lodias, across the isthmus between Kara Bay and the Gulf of the Obi." Several explorers, Lieutenants Muravief, Malgyn, and Shurakoff, between 1734 and 1738, sailed from Archangel to the Obi, doubling the promontory. Lieutenant Koskelof sailed successfully from the Obi to the Yenisei in 1738. In 1735 Lieutenant Pronchishchef, accompanied by his wife, got near Cape Chelyuskin, his vessel being frozen in there. He and his wife both died that winter. In 1742 Lieutenant Chelyuskin reached the northernmost point of the continent in latitude 77° 34' N., by sledges.

In the summer of 1843 Middendorf explored the region which terminates in Cape Taimyr, by land. "In August he arrived at the shores of the Polar Sea, and sighted Cape Taimyr," whence he saw open water.

From the Lena eastward, vessels have frequently