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Chapter 352 : THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF OUR ANCESTORS.BY M. HAVERTY, ESQ.That the early inhabitants of

THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF OUR ANCESTORS.

BY M. HAVERTY, ESQ.

That the early inhabitants of Ireland possessed sundry kinds of manufacture is a point that can scarcely be disputed; for, besides frequent pa.s.sages in ancient and authentic historical doc.u.ments referring to the matter, we have satisfactory evidence in those specimens of the manufactured articles themselves which have been preserved to the present day, and which bear testimony to the skill and industry that produced them.

A visit to the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy must convince us of the excellent workmans.h.i.+p of the ancient Irish bronze swords, and other weapons, and of certain ancient gold ornaments--both bronze and gold articles belonging to a date anterior to the introduction of Christianity into Ireland. From the early Christian ages we have received many of the old ecclesiastical ornaments that have been preserved; and some of them exhibit that peculiar and exquisite kind of interlaced ornamentation which began at a remote period to be known as _opus Hibernic.u.m_, or the Irish style.

We know that the ancient Irish were skilled in the manufacture of their musical instruments, as well as in the use of them; and in the preparation of parchment, as well as in the almost unrivalled beauty of penmans.h.i.+p of which that parchment has preserved so many specimens.

Then we must return to much more ancient times for the manufacture of gold and silver goblets, and, above all, for those beautiful fibulae, or brooches, which have afforded models for some of the most graceful and costly articles of female decoration at the present day. We may very naturally conclude that these charming fibular were not employed to hold together mantles of the coa.r.s.est possible manufacture, or, rather, that there was some proportion between the texture of the cloth and the beautiful workmans.h.i.+p of the brooch which clasped it round the person of the wearer; and, in a word, we are justified in presuming that some manufactures, besides those of which specimens were durable enough to have been preserved to the present day, existed in the country.

The incessant warfare of the Danish period, and of the centuries following the Anglo-Norman invasion, must have been destructive to the industrial arts; yet we meet occasionally with some external evidence of their existence even then. Some eighty years ago, the Earl of Charlemont lighted on a curious pa.s.sage relating to the subject in an Italian poem of the fourteenth century. From this and other authorities he was able to show, in a paper published in the first volume of the "Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy," that Ireland produced a fine woollen fabric called serge, which enjoyed an European reputation at the very time the Flemish weavers were brought over by Edward III. to establish the woollen manufacture in England, and consequently before it could have been introduced here from the latter country. The investigation of such scattered facts as these would be interesting, and no doubt would flatter national vanity. It may, perhaps, occupy us on some future occasion; but for the present we shall confine our inquiry to a somewhat more modern epoch, and more tangible evidences.

Strangely enough, the first writer we have had on the natural history and industrial resources of Ireland happens {550} to have been a Dutchman. Dr. Gerard Boate--a resident of London, though by birth, it appears, a Hollander--obtained the post of state physician in Ireland from the Commonwealth, in 1649 and having purchased, as an adventurer, a few years earlier, some of the forfeited lands in Leinster and Ulster, applied himself to the subject of his book, with a view originally to the improvement of his own property. His information, however, was obtained, not from personal experience, but from Irish gentlemen whom he had met in London, such as Sir William and Sir Richard Parsons; and from his brother, Dr. Arnold Boate, who had practiced as a physician in Dublin for many years; but he himself, unfortunately, died a few months after his arrival in Ireland to enter on the duties of his office, before he was able to carry out more than half the original design of his work, which, though written in 1645, was not published until some years after his death. He collected his information and wrote while the great civil war was still raging, and when all his feelings and interests must have been strongly enlisted against the native race, so that we are not to be surprised at the acerbity of some of his expressions about them. Our concern is, not with his feelings or opinions, but with the facts which he relates, and the descriptions and statistics which he supplies.

On the state of metallurgy in Ireland in his time, Dr. Boate gives us some very curious information. He denies any knowledge of the subject on the part of the native Irish, and a.s.serts that all the mines in Ireland were discovered by the "New English." "The Old English in Ireland," he says, "that is, those who are come in from the time of the first conquest until the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, have been so plagued with wars from time to time--one while intestine among themselves, and another while with the Irish--that they could scarce ever find the opportunity of seeking for mines... ... And the Irish themselves, as being one of the most barbarous nations of the whole earth, have at all times been so far from seeking out any, that even in these last years, and since the English have begun to discover some, none of them all, great or small, at any time hath applied himself to that business, or in the least manner furthered it; so that all the mines which to this day are found out in Ireland, have been discovered (at least, as far to make any use of them) by the New English, that is, such as are come in during and since the reign of Queen Elizabeth." (_Thom's Collection of Tracts and Treatises_, vol.

i. 102.)

He adds, that several iron mines had been discovered in various parts of the kingdom, and also some of lead and silver, during the forty years' peace, from the death of Elizabeth to the outbreak of the great rebellion--the longest peace, he remarks, that Ireland ever enjoyed, either before or after the coming of the English. The great extent to which smelting was carried on during a portion of that time may be concluded from the almost incredible destruction of the Irish woods, to make charcoal for the purpose. This Dr. Boate describes in a preceding chapter; "As long as the land was in the full possession of the Irish themselves," he says, and we know the fact from many other sources, "all Ireland was very full of woods on every side;" but the English cleared away a great deal of these, both to destroy the lurking places of their foes, and to convert the land into tillage and pasture. Besides the woods cleared for these purposes, a vast amount of timber was felled, as Boate tells us, for merchandise, and to make charcoal for the iron works. The timber comprised under the former head does not appear to have been for building, but simply for pipe staves and the like, of which, he says, great quant.i.ties were exported even in former times; "and," he adds, "during the last peace a mighty trade was driven in them, and whole s.h.i.+ploads sent into foreign countries yearly;" while, "as for the charcoal," he {551} continues, "it is incredible what quant.i.ty thereof is consumed by one iron work in a year ... so that it was necessary from time to time to fell an infinite number of trees, all the loppings and windfalls being not sufficient for it in the least manner." The result of all this was, that even in Boate's time, that is, over 200 years ago, the greater part of Ireland was left totally bare of woods; the inhabitants could obtain no wood for building, or even for firing; and in some parts one might travel whole days without seeing any trees, except a few about gentlemen's houses. For a distance of over three score miles from north to south, in the counties of Louth and Dublin, "one doth not come near any woods worth speaking of; and in some parts thereof you shall not see so much as one tree in many miles. For the great woods which the maps do represent unto us upon the mountains, between Dundalk and Nurie, are quite vanished, there being nothing left of them these many years since but one only tree, standing close by the highway, at the very top of one of the mountains, so far as it may be seen a great way off, and therefore serveth travellers for a mark."

At that period iron mines were worked extensively near Tallow, on the borders of Cork and Waterford, by the famous Earl of Cork; in the county of Clare, some six miles from Limerick; at a place called Desert, in the King's County, by Sergeant-Major Pigott; at Mountrath and Mountmellick, in the Queen's County; on the sh.o.r.es of Lough Allen, both on the Roscommon and Leitrim sides--the mountains of Slieve-an-ieran, or the Iron Mountain, in the latter county, having obtained its name, in the remotest ages, from the presence of that metal; on the sh.o.r.es of Lough Erne, in Fermanagh; in Cavan; at Lissan, on the borders of Tyrone and Londonderry, where the works were carried on by Sir Thomas Staples, the owner of the soil; at the foot of Slieve Gallen, in the county of Derry; and in several other places. Iron smelting works and foundries were erected, not only in the vicinity of the mines, but in other places on the coast, and elsewhere, where the convenience of water carriage and the supplies of charcoal afforded inducements. To some of these works on the sea-coast, the ore was brought even from England; but the princ.i.p.al iron works appear to have been those belonging to the Earl of Cork, in Munster; to Sir Charles Coote, at Mountrath, and in Roscommon and Leitrim; to the Earl of Londonderry, in his own county; to Lord Chancellor Loftus, ancestor of the Marquis of Ely, at Mountmellick; to Sir John Dunbar, in Fermanagh; Sir Leonard Blennerha.s.sett, on Lough Erne; and a company of London merchants in Clare. We are not told whether these last were the representatives of the London Mining Company, to which Queen Elizabeth granted the royalties of the precious metals that might be discovered within the English Pale. Mr. Christopher Wandsworth, who had been Master of the Rolls for Ireland, and acted as Lord Deputy under the Earl of Strafford, erected a foundry in the county of Carlow, where ordnance were cast, and also a kind of small round furnaces, pots, and other articles made.

It was estimated that the owners of the iron works--we do not here refer to the mines--made a profit of forty per cent in the year; and Boate was a.s.sured, by persons who were particularly well informed on the subject, that the Earl of Cork cleared 100,000 by his iron works.

Sir Charles Coote--"that zealous and famous warriour in this present warre against the Irish rebells," in the first year of which war he fell--appears to have been quite as famous as an iron-master as he was as a warrior, and his iron-works at Mountrath were a model at that time. A ton of the ore called rock mine cost him, at the furnace head, 5s. 6d.; and a ton of white mine, or ore dug from a mountain, 7s. The two ores were mixed in the {552} proportion of one of rock mine to two of white mine, and three tons of the mixed ore yielded one ton of good bar iron, which was conveyed in rude, small boats called cots, on the River Nore to Waterford, and thence s.h.i.+pped to London, where it was sold for 16, and sometimes for 17, or even 17 10s.; the whole cost of the iron to Sir Charles Coote, including that of digging it out of the mine and every expense until it reached the London market, Custom House duty included, being between 10 and 11 per ton. In most places the cost of the ore at the furnace varied from 5s. to 6s. per ton; and when the ore was particularly rich, 2-1/2 tons produced one ton of good iron; but Boate tells us that few of the iron smelters carried on their work as profitably as Sir Charles Coote.

In Boate's time, only three lead and silver mines appear to have been known in Ireland. One of these was in the county of Antrim, and was very rich, yielding 1 lb. of silver to 30 lbs. of lead; another was situated in Cony Island, at Sligo; and the third, the only one which was worked, was the famous silver mines of the barony of Upper Ormond, in Tipperary, about twelve miles from Limerick. This mine had been discovered about forty years before, and was at first supposed to be merely a lead mine; some of the first lead it produced being used by the Earl of Th.o.m.ond to roof his house at Bunratty. It was worked in the shape of open pits, several fathoms deep, but still sloping so gradually, that the ore was carried to the surface in wheelbarrows.

Each ton of ore at this mine yielded 3 lbs. of pure silver; but our authority does not inform us how much lead. The silver was sold in Dublin for 5s. 2d. per oz., and the lead for 11 per ton, though it is stated to have brought 12 in Limerick; and the royalty, or king's share, was a sixth part of the silver, and a tenth of the lead. The rest was the property of those who farmed the mine, and who cleared an estimated profit of 2000 per annum. The works at this mine, and in general all the smelting works which we have mentioned throughout the country, were of course destroyed in the civil war.

So much for the practical metallurgy of Ireland, as it existed two hundred years ago. Of the knowledge of the original inhabitants on the subject, Sir William Wilde ("Catalogue of Antiquities," etc., vol. i.

p. 351) says--and his opinion is the result of all the investigation that is practicable in the matter--"When, and how, the Irish people discovered metals and their uses, together with the art of smelting and casting, has not been determined by archaeologists;" but a few remarkable and suggestive facts on the subject may be mentioned.

Ma.n.u.scripts, themselves five or six hundred years old, and purporting to give information handed down from the most remote antiquity, make frequent mention of the knowledge and use of metals among the ancient Irish. Thus the old annalists say, that "gold was first smelted in Ireland in Fotharta-Airthir-Liffe," a woody district in Wicklow, east of the River Liffey, supposed to coincide with the present well-known auriferous tract in that county. Indeed, it is most probable that gold was the first metal known to the Irish, as well as to all people in early stages of civilization, as, besides its glittering quality, it is almost the only metal found in a native state upon the surface, and consequently obtainable without the art of smelting. Dr. Boate writes: "I believe many will think it very unlikely that there should be any gold mines in Ireland; but a credible person hath given me to understand, that one of his acquaintances had several times a.s.sured him that out of a certain rivulet, in the county of Nether-Tirone, called Miola, he had gathered about one dram of pure gold." We also know from the celts, and other articles in these metals which have been preserved, that the ancient Irish possessed {553} copper, which they were able to convert into bra.s.s and bronze; and also that they had silver, tin, lead, and iron. The Irish version of Nennius mentions, as the first wonder of Ireland, that Lough Lein--the Lake of Killarney--is surrounded by four circles, viz., "a circle of tin, and a circle of lead, and a circle of iron, and a circle of copper"--an indication not only that these metals were known to the people, but that some rude idea had been formed of the mineralogy of the district.

THEIR AGRICULTURE.

Grain, in one shape or other, formed a main ingredient in the food of the Irish from the earliest historic period; and we may, consequently, include Agriculture among the earliest of their industrial arts. We are not aware of any time at which they were exclusively a flesh-eating people; and we find it clearly stated, with reference to periods not altogether very remote, that the native Irish subsisted to a great extent on the milk and b.u.t.ter of their large herds of cattle, seldom killing the animals for their flesh. On the other hand, we know that vast numbers of cattle were slain and consumed in the constant petty wars of the country; and that the lawless dwellers in the _cranogues_, or lake habitations--whatever period they belong to--were decidedly carnivorous, as the immense acc.u.mulations of the bones and horns of cattle found in their insulated haunts testify. But the fact we contend for is, that the ancient Irish were a granivorous quite as much as a carnivorous race, if not more so; and some ethnologists have concluded, from an examination of very ancient Irish crania, that the teeth were chiefly employed in masticating grain in a hard state.

It is a curious and well-known fact that in many parts of Ireland traces of tillage are visible on the now barren sides or summits of hills, in places which have been long since abandoned to savage nature, and in a soil which would appear never to have been susceptible of cultivation. Some such elevated spots, now covered with gra.s.s, are known to have been cultivated some years since, when the rural population was much denser than at present; but we are referring to other places where we find well-marked ridges and furrows on hillsides, four or five hundred feet above the sea level, or even more; and which are now covered with heath, and so denuded, by ages of atmospheric action on the steep slopes, as to retain only the least quant.i.ty of vegetable surface, wholly inadequate at present to nourish any kind of grain.

When, and by whom, were these wild spots cultivated? The country people have lost all tradition on the subject, and subst.i.tute their own conjectures.

It is not probable that the population of Ireland was ever so dense as to have necessitated such extreme efforts to eke out the arable land; or that the people were ever so crowded as to have been compelled, as it were, like the Chinese, to Terrace the hill-sides to grow food. Mr.

Thom has collected, in his admirable "Statistics of Ireland," all the authentic accounts of Irish census returns. Taking these in their inverse order, we find that the 8,175,124 of 1841 was only 6,801,827 in 1821; 5,937,856 in 1814; 4,088,226 in 1792; 2,544,276 in 1767; 2,309,106 in 1726; 1,034,102 in 1695; and 1,300,000 in 1672. These latter early returns were merely the estimates of the hearth-money collectors, and are generally deemed to be unreliable. Newenham, in his Enquiry, expresses his disbelief in them, and shows from the statements of Arthur Young, and from official returns, that they were clearly under the truth. Yet the returns recently found by Mr.

Hardinge, of the Landed Estates Record Office, among the papers of Sir William Petty, in the library of the Marquis of Lansdowne, would reduce the population to a {554} much lower figure still at an epoch only a little earlier than the date last enumerated above. Mr.

Hardinge shows that the Petty returns must have been made in 1658 or 1659; and, supplying a proportional computation for some omitted counties and baronies, he finds that the total population of Ireland at that date was only _half a million!_ It is true that this was immediately after the close of the long and desolating civil war which commenced in 1641; and at a time when, as Mr. Hardinge observes, one province had been so utterly depopulated as to leave its lands vacant for the transplanted remnants of the people of two other provinces; yet, even under all the circ.u.mstances, the number is incredibly small.

Going further back, we may conclude that the population could not have been considerable during the constant civil wars which wasted the entire country throughout the long reign of Elizabeth; nor was there any time from the Anglo-Norman invasion to that period in which the circ.u.mstances of the country were favorable to the social or numerical development of the population; while in earlier times matters can hardly be said to have been a whit better. There is no period of ancient Irish history in which the native annalists do not record almost an annual recurrence of internecine wars in all the provinces--wars equally inveterate and sanguinary, whether the country was infested by foreign foes, or not (_vide_ the Four Masters _pa.s.sim_)--while, on the other hand, we know that the population of a country never multiplies excessively except in long intervals of peace. It may be urged that the remains of the innumerable _raths_ and _cahirs_, or _caishels_, which cover the land, and of the abbeys and small churches which dot the country, indicate periods of very dense population: but this is a mistaken notion; for at the time when the raths were inhabited, it can scarcely be said there were any towns in Ireland; and even when the monasteries were built, the population was almost wholly rural, and scattered; while a great many of the very small religious edifices through the country were only the isolated oratories of hermits.

The poet, Spenser, writing about A.D. 1596, would seem to give us the best clue to the time in which those mountain wildernesses we have been referring to were subjected to a kind of cultivation. In his "View of the State of Ireland," he makes _Irenaeus_ relate how the most part of the Irish fled from the power of Henry II. "into deserts and mountains, leaving the wyde countrey to the conquerour, who in their stead eftsoones placed English men, who possessed all their lands, and did quite shut out the Irish, or the most part of them:"

and how "they [the Irish] continued in that lowlinesse untill the time that the division betweene the two houses of Lancaster and York arose for the crowne of England; at which time all the great English lords and gentlemen, which had great possessions in Ireland, repaired over hither into England... ... Then the Irish whom before they had banished into the mountains, where they only lived on white meates, as it is recorded, seeing now their lands so dispeopled and weakened, came downe into all the plaines adjoyning, and thence expelling those few English that remained, repossessed them againe, since which they have remained in them," etc.

It is most probable, then, that it was during that early period of refuge in the mountains that the wild tracts we have alluded to were cultivated by the Irish; and it is worth remarking that when, in Spenser's own time, the English recovered a portion of the plain at the foot of Slieve Bloom, in the O'Moore's country, of which the Irish had been for several years in quiet possession, they were surprised at the high state of cultivation in which they found it.

{555}

The ancient Irish ploughed with oxen, as appears from many unquestionable authorities--among others, from a reference to the subject in the volume of "Brehon Laws" recently published by Government, page 123; but in subsequent times they were brought so low, that in some places, and among the poorest sort, the barbarous practice prevailed of yoking the plough to a horse's tail! It is a mistake to suppose, on the one hand, that this was a mere groundless calumny on the people; or, on the other, that it was anything like a general national custom. The preamble to the Act of the Irish Parliament (10 and 11 Charles I., chap. 15) pa.s.sed in 1635, to prohibit the practice, says: "Whereas in many places of this kingdome there hath been a long time used a barbarous custome of ploughing... .

and working horses, mares, etc, by the taile, whereby (besides the cruelty used to the beasts) the breed of horses is much impaired in this kingdome, to the great prejudice thereof; and whereas also divers have and yet do use the like barbarous custom of pulling off the wool yearly from living sheep, instead of clipping or shearing of them, be it therefore enacted," etc., etc.

That this Act, as well as the subsequent Act, chap. 15, "to prevent the unprofitable custom of burning of corne in the straw," instead of thres.h.i.+ng out the grain, was regarded as a popular grievance, appears from the fact, that the repeal of these Acts was made one of the points of negotiation with the Marquis of Ormond during the Civil War; but they remained on the Statute Book until repealed, as obsolete, in 1828, by 9 Geo. IV. c. 53.

Boate, writing about Ireland, more than two hundred years ago, labors to show that the soil and climate are better suited for grazing than for tillage. "Although Ireland," he quaintly observes, "almost in every part bringeth good corn plentifully, nevertheless hath it a more naturall aptness for gra.s.s, the which in most places it produceth very good and plentiful! of itself, or with little help; the which also hath been well observed by Giraldus, who of this matter writeth--'This iland is fruitfuller in gra.s.s and pastures than in corn and graines."

And farther on he continues: "The abundance and greatness of pastures in Ireland doth appear by the numberless number of all sorts of cattell, especially kine and sheep, wherewith this country in time of peace doth swarm on all sides." He remarks, that, although the Irish kine, sheep, and horses were of a small size, that did not arise from the nature of the gra.s.s, as was fully demonstrated by the fact that the breed of large cattle brought out of England did not deteriorate in point of size or excellence.

Sir William Petty states that the cattle and other grazing stock of Ireland were worth above 4,000,000 in 1641, at the outbreak of the civil war; and that in 1652 the whole was not worth 500,000.

John Lord Sheffield, in "Observations on the Manufactures, etc., of Ireland," Dublin, 1785, writes that Ireland, "which had so abounded in cattle and provisions, was, after Cromwell's settlement of it, obliged to import provisions from Wales. However, it was sufficiently recovered soon after the Restoration to alarm the grazing counties of England; and in the year 1666 the importation of live cattle, sheep, swine, etc, from Ireland was prohibited... . . Ireland turned to sheep, to the dairy, and fattening of cattle, and to tillage; and she shortly exported much beef and b.u.t.ter, and has since supplanted England in those beneficial branches of trade. She was forced to seek a foreign market; and England had no more than one fourth of her trade, although before that time she had almost the whole of it."

{556}

Arthur Young, whose "Agricultural Tours in Ireland in 1775, etc.," did so much for the improvement of this country, always advocated tillage in preference to grazing. Referring to the former, he says: "The products upon the whole [of Ireland] are much inferior to those of England though not more so than I should have expected; not from inferiority of soil, but from the extreme inferiority of management... .

Tillage in Ireland is very little understood. In the greatest corn counties, such as Louth, Kildare, Carlow, and Kilkenny, where are to be seen many very fine crops of wheat, all is under the old system, exploded by good farmers in England, of sowing wheat upon a fallow and succeeding it with as many crops of spring corn as the soil will bear.

... But keeping cattle of every sort is a business so much more adapted to the laziness of the farmer, that it is no wonder the tillage is so bad. It is everywhere left to the cotters, or to the very poorest of the farmers, who are all utterly unable to make those exertions upon which alone a vigorous culture of the earth can be founded; and were it not for potatoes, which necessarily prepare for corn, there would not be half of what we see at present. While it is in such hands, no wonder tillage is reckoned be unprofitable. Profit in all undertakings depends on capital; and is it any wonder that the profit should be small when the capital is nothing at all! Every man that has one gets into cattle, which will give him an idle lazy superintendence instead of an active attentive one."

How much of this is just as applicable to the state of things in our own times, as it was eighty or ninety years ago! Young would appear to be describing accurately the state of agriculture in Ireland just before the last destructive famine; but happily he would find at the present moment a considerable improvement. One change, however, which he would find would not be much to his taste. He would see even the humblest tenant farmer, as well as the large land occupier, placing almost his whole confidence in pasturage, and compelled to abandon tillage by the uncertainty of the seasons, the low price of grain, and the increasing price of labor.

[ORIGINAL.]

CLAIMS.

Nay,--claim it not, the lightest joy that throws Its transient blushes o'er the beaming earth Or the sweet hope in any living thing As thine by birth.

No precious sympathy, no thoughtful care, No touch of tenderness, however near; But watch the blossoming of life's delight With sacred fear.

Have joy in life, and gladden to the sense Of dear companions.h.i.+p, in thought, in sight; But oh! as gifts of heaven's abounding love, Not thine by right.

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From The Month.

SEALSKINS AND COPPERSKINS.

Captain Hall, unconvinced by the evidence published by Captain M'Clintock in 1859, undertook his expedition in search of the surviving members of Sir John Franklin's crew, (if such there were;) or in the hope of clearing up all doubt about the history of their end, in the event of their having perished. He was baffled in his attempt to reach the region in which he hoped to find traces of the objects of his search, by the wreck of the boat which he had constructed for the enterprise; and his s.h.i.+p being beset with ice in a winter which set in earlier than usual, he spent more than two years--the interval between May, 1860, and September, 1862--among the Esquimaux on the western coast of Davis's Strait, in order to acquire their language and familiarize himself with their habits and mode of life. He is at present once more in the arctic regions, having returned thither in order to prosecute his enterprise. He is now accompanied by two intelligent Esquimaux, whom he took back with him to America; and who, having now learnt English, will serve him as interpreters as well as a means of introduction to the various settlements of Esquimaux whom he may have occasion to visit in his travels. The results of his present expedition will probably be more interesting than those of his first. If we test the success of his first voyage by the discoveries to which it led, these were confined to correcting the charts of a portion of the western coast of Davis's Strait, and to proving that the waters. .h.i.therto laid down as "Frobisher's _Strait_" are in fact not a strait, but a bay. As a voyage of discovery, its importance falls far short of that undertaken for the same object in 1857 by Captain M'Clintock. Captain Hall, however, was enabled, by comparing the various traditions among the Esquimaux, to arrive at the spot where Frobisher, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, attempted to found a settlement on "Kodlunarn" [that is, "White man's"] Island, (the Countess Warwick's Island, of English maps,) where he found coal, brick, iron implements, timber, and buildings still remaining. This success in tracing out, by means of information supplied by the natives, the relics of an expedition undertaken more than three centuries ago, makes him confident of obtaining a like success in unravelling the mystery in which the fate of Sir John Franklin and his companions is still wrapped, by a similar residence among the Esquimaux of Boothia and King William's Island, which were the last known points in their wanderings. This is the region he is now attempting to reach for the second time. But the real value of his present volume is the accurate and faithful record it gives of the author's impressions, received from day to day during a residence within the arctic zone, and the details it gives of the habits and character of the Esquimaux.