his perseverance by reaching the mouth of the Coppermine River, and standing on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. For the first time the eyes of a European rested upon that portion of the universal sea surrounding the North Pole which washes the northern coast of America; for the first time the white man realized the existence of yet another ocean—an ocean which must henceforth replace the fabulous unbroken masses of land figuring on all maps between the most northerly limit reached by explorers and the North Pole.
Before this great and unexpected revelation, throwing a flood of new light on the geography of North America, and with it of the whole world, all minor details sank into insignificance. Hearne had proved beyond a doubt that the Strait of Anian, if such a strait there were, had its eastern outlet, if any, in the Icy Sea; he had ascertained that the American continent stretched away hundreds of miles beyond what had hitherto been accepted as its western limits; he had seen that the extreme North was inhabited by a race differing essentially from all their southern neighbors; he had noticed the trace of the existence of thousands of whales, seals, and other valuable denizens of the deep; but what was all this, in Hearne's estimation, compared to the unvarnished fact of the existence of a new ocean!
Hastening back to Hudson's Bay with the great news, Hearne saw the copper-mine of which Indian tradition had told so much. It was a poor, exhausted mine, not likely to yield the smallest profit to the Company; but what of that? The Arctic Ocean lay beyond it! Following a somewhat more westerly course than on his northern journey, Hearne entered level districts abounding in game; but what of that? The Arctic Ocean washed the desolate shores above the fur-yielding plains! A fair young Indian woman, who had escaped from some Athapescow warriors after the murder of her whole family, was found dwelling alone in a little hut, supporting herself by hunting deer and snaring rabbits. Hearne's followers wrestled for the possession of the young exile as a wife, and she was carried off by the victor; but this strange and significant scene could scarcely interest our hero now. The Arctic Ocean was awaiting its explorers—alas! also its victims—and the ways of the natives, who had so little valued the great fact of its existence, were of small account.
Roused from its lethargy at last by the report brought home by its gallant employé, the Hudson's Bay Company now did all in its power to encourage further research, and to its efforts were due the sending forth of Franklin on his first great voyage, which ushered in a new era of Arctic exploration.
