108 A SURVEYOR'S CHAIN. 



Hans and Peter have been setting fox-traps and shoot- 

 ing rabbits. The foxes, both the white and blue vari- 

 eties, appear to be quite numerous, and there are also 

 many rabbits, or rather I should say hares. These 

 latter are covered with a long heavy pelt which is a 

 pure white, and are very large. One caught to-day 

 weighed eight pounds. 



October 17th. 

 McCormick, who is general tinker and the very em- 

 bodiment of ingenuity, has been making for me a sur- 

 veyor's chain out of some iron rods ; and a party, con- 

 sisting of Sonntag, McCormick, Dodge, Radcliffe, and 

 Starr, have been surveying the bay and harbor with 

 this chain and the theodolite. They seem to have 

 made quite a frolic of it, which, considering the de- 

 pressed state of the thermometer, is, I think, a very 

 commendable circumstance. Barnum and McDonald 

 have been given a holiday, and they went out with 

 shot-guns after reindeer. They report having seen 

 forty-six, all of which they succeeded in badly fright- 

 ening, and they also started many foxes. Charley 

 also had a holiday, but, disdaining the huntsman's 

 weapons, he started on a " voyage of discovery," as he 

 styled it. Strolling down into the bay above Crystal 

 Palace Cliffs,^ he came upon an old Esquimau settle- 

 ment, and, finding a grave, robbed it of its bony con- 

 tents, and brought them to me wrapped up in his coat. 

 It makes a very valuable addition to my ethnological 

 collection, and a glass of grog and the promise of 

 other holidays have secured the cooperation of Char- 

 ley in this branch of science. Charley, by the way, 

 is one of my most reliable men, and gives promise of 



1 Discovered and so named by Captain Inglefield, R. N., in August, 

 1852. 



