sounding.  Our depth was from twelve to five fathoms; the bottom a hard gravel, though the water was exceedingly muddy.  At eight o’clock a fresh breeze sprung up at east, blowing in an opposite direction to our course; so that I despaired of reaching the entrance of the river, to which we were plying up, before high water.  But thinking, that what the ships could not do might be done by boats, I dispatched two, under the command of Lieutenant King, to examine the tides, and to make such other observations as might give us some insight into the nature of the river.

At ten o’clock, finding the ebb began, I anchored in nine fathoms water, over a gravelly bottom.  Observing the tide to be too strong for the boats to make head against it, I made a signal for them to return on board, before they had got half way to the entrance of the river they were sent to examine, which bore from us S. 80 deg.  E., three leagues distant.  The principal information gained by this tide’s work, was the determining that all the low land, which we had supposed to be an island or islands, was one continued tract, from the banks of the great river to the foot of the mountains, to which it joined; and that it terminated at the south entrance of this eastern branch, which I shall distinguish by the name of River Turnagain.  On the north side of this river, the low land again begins, and stretches out from the foot of the mountains down to the banks of the great river; so that, before the river Turnagain, it forms a large bay, on the south side of which we were now at anchor, and where we had from twelve to five fathoms, from half-flood to high water.

After we had entered the bay, the flood set strong into the river Turnagain, and ebb came out with still greater force; the water falling, while we lay at anchor, twenty feet upon a perpendicular.  These circumstances convinced me, that no passage was to be expected by this side-river anymore than by the main branch.  However, as the water, during the ebb, though very considerably fresher, had still a strong degree of saltness, it is but reasonable to suppose, that both these branches are navigable by ships much farther than we examined them; and that by means of this river, and its several branches, a very extensive inland communication lies open.  We had traced it as high as the latitude of 61 deg. 30’, and the longitude of 210 deg.; which is seventy leagues or more from its entrance, without seeing the least appearance of its source.

If the discovery of this great river,[5] which promises to vie with the most considerable ones already known to be capable of extensive inland navigation, should prove of use either to the present or to any future age, the time we spent in it ought to be the less regretted.  But to us, who had a much greater object in view, the delay thus occasioned was an essential loss.  The season was advancing apace.  We knew not how far we might have to proceed to the south; and we were