dk. bae's explokations.                  295
explorations on the ice the next spring. He therefore recrossed the isthmus with his boat, and set about collecting provisions and fuel for a ten months' winter.
To one less experienced and hardy, the desolate shores of Repulse Bay would have forbidden such an attempt. They yielded neither drift-wood nor shrubby plants of any kind; but Dr. Rae employed part of his men to gather the withered stems of a small herbaceous plant which grew in abundance on the rocks, and to pile it in cocks like hay: others he set to build a house of stone and earth called Fort Hope ; while he and his Esquimaux interpreter were occupied in killing deer for winter food. , Early in April, 1847, Rae and part of his men started with sledges drawn by dogs, and after again reaching Committee Bay, traveled northerly along its western shore, and on the 18th reached the Lord Mayor's Bay of Sir John Ross, on whose shores the crew of the lost Victory so long resided. This journey proved that Ross was right in supposing that Boothia was connected with the continent. No attempt was made to proceed westerly to the Castor and Pollux, and the party immediately set out on their return to Fort Hope.
On the 12th of May Rae started to examine the eastern coast of Committee Bay, and on the 27th had reached his farthest point at a headland, which he called Cape Crozier, situated about twenty miles south of the west end of the Fury and Hecla Strait. He then returned to Repulse Bay, and the whole party arrived safely at Fort Churchill on the last day of August. The entire expedition had been an eminently successful one, and proved that Dr. Rae was
well calculated for an Arctic explorer.
18