Useful to the Chipewyan Tribes of Indians, 135 



Mineral Products. 



The mineral kingdom affords but few and unimportant articles 

 for the necessities of the Indians. 



Sulphur is found in considerable quantities at the Sulphur Cove 

 on Great Slave Lake. Here sulphur springs occupy a space of 

 several hundred yards in length along the beach. They are very 

 clear, and flow in small rivulets, whose banks are encrusted with 

 a deposit of sulphur which becomes serviceable when thoroughly 

 dried, and is used by the Chipewyan Indians who come to Fort 

 Resolution, in the fabrication of matches. 



Common Salt is procured from the salt plains lying about 20 

 miles up the Salt Elver, a tributary of the Slave. The springs is- 

 sue from the base of a long ridge, some hundreds of feet in height, 

 and spreading their waters over a clayey plain, deposit the salt by 

 evaporation in cubical crystals of various degrees of fineness. The 

 mother liquor flows into Salt River, giving a name as well as a most 

 abominable taste to that stream, which is still sensibly brackish 

 at its junction with the Slave. At present, the main supply of salt 

 is confined to one large jet d^eau from which a strong brine, 

 mingled with completely formed crystals, is perpetually thrown. 

 Around this spring, evaporation has formed a hillock of dry salt 

 many feet high ; and a pole forty feet long was shoved into the 

 spring without finding boltom. Sir John Richardson considers 

 that these fountains belong to the Onondaga Salt group of the 

 Upper Silurian Series of New York. 



Numerous bands of buffalo, elk, and reindeer frequent these 

 plains to lick the mineral, of which they are extremely fond* 

 The salt is of excellent quality, strong and well-flavoured. It 

 preserves meat, meal, and butter, fully as well as that imported 

 from England, being far superior to the description manufactured 

 in the plain country of the Swan River District. As the Salt 

 River is very crooked, with generally too litt.le water to float any 

 craft larger than a small canoe, the transport of the salt from the 

 springs to its mouth is by horses. 



Ochres, red and blue, are procured at several points in the Dis- 

 trict, and are ueed for painting snow-shoes and sleds, by the na- 

 tives. The Loucheux of the Youcon River paint their faces with 

 these colors in the same way as the tribes of the Plain. 



White earth or Pipeclay is found associated with the coal beds 

 at the mouth of Bear River. When newly dug, it is plastic, but 



