2i8 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [vol. ix 



intersected with ravines, forms steep hills. Nearer the sea, the river is 

 bounded by very steep cliffs of yellowish-white sand; and on the sea- 

 coast, the above mentioned red granite reappears on the west bank of the 

 river, forming a rugged ridge about two hundred and fifty feet high."* 



In this same year, 1821, Franklin and Richardson found trap-rocks 

 of the copper-bearing series eastward along the Arctic Coast for nearly 

 two hundred miles, or as far as the east side of Bathurst Inlet, nearly 

 two hundred miles, though no copper or copper-ore seems to have been 

 found in them. 



On Franklin's Second Journey in 1826 Richardson recognized the 

 existence of rocks of similar character at a number of points along the 

 Arctic Coast for 200 miles west of the Coppermine River. 



With regard to the character and age of some of these rocks Sir 

 John Richardson says: 



"The quartz rock beds acquire occasionally a pistachio-green colour, 

 as if from the presence of epidote. A similar stone occurs at Pigeon 

 River on the north shore of Lake Superior ; and the limestones and sand- 

 stones of the latter district with their associated trap rocks, as at Thunder 

 Mountain, correspond in most respects with those between Cape Parry 

 and the Coppermine River; and consequently, if we can rely on lithologi- 

 cal characters, they may be considered as the oldest members of the Sil- 

 urian series, or as the rocks on which that series is deposited, to which 

 epoch the Lake Superior formation has been assigned."*^ 



From the description quoted above it would appear that the rocks 

 on the Coppermine River are similar to the Copper-bearing rocks on Lake 

 Superior, and that the conditions under which the copper occurs are also 

 similar to those under which it occurs on Keewenaw Point on the south 

 shore of Lake Superior. Speaking broadly, these rocks would appear 

 to indicate a repetition to the north of the great Archean protaxis of 

 the conditions which have prevailed on Lake Superior to the south of it. 



Since Franklin and Richardson visited, mapped and described this 

 region, very little attention has been paid to it, though Thomas Simpson 

 and John Rae both crossed the Coppermine River, and make mention 

 of it in their Journals. 



The traps and associated rocks may cover a very much larger area 

 than we have any knowledge of at present. In 1903 I found them on the 

 north shore of Doobaunt Lake and on the Doobaunt River below the 

 Lake. As late as 1902 the late David Hanbury ascended Coppermine 



* Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea in the years 1819, 20, 21, 

 and 22. By John Franklin. London, 1823. 4to, pp. 528-30. 



*i Arctic Searching Expedition. By Sir John Richardson. London, 2 Vols., 1851. 

 Vol I, p. 283. 



