﻿154 DEADMAN's islands. July, 



miles, when we saw Mr. Bell and his boats issuing 

 from behind Moose-deer Island, and steering for the 

 house ; but time was too precious for us to wait for 

 his coming up. Our route lay through a small 

 group of islands lying five or six miles off the bay 

 into which Buffalo Creek falls. In these islands, 

 a bituminous limestone crops out in thin horizon- 

 tal layers near the water's edge ; but, except in a 

 few places, its beds are concealed under a beach 

 composed of fragments of the same stone, partly 

 rolled and worn, partly with recently broken 

 edges. The islands are most of them low ; and 

 the stony beach rising above their centres encloses 

 marshy spots traversed by ridges of sand and 

 gravel, more or less wooded. 



At 5 p. M. the wind, which had been increasing 

 all the afternoon, rose to a high gale, and we put 

 into a good boat harbour at Deadman's Island and 

 encamped. This spot received its name from a 

 massacre committed by a war party of Beaver 

 Indians, who surprised a body of Dog-ribs en- 

 camped there, and destroyed them all. Thirty 

 years ago many of the bones of the victims were to 

 be seen, but they have now disappeared. The 

 influence of the Hudson's Bay Company has put a 

 stop to these war excursions, and tribes formerly 

 the most hostile to each other now meet in amity 

 at the trading posts. 



