NORTHERN OCEAN. 
index, and feveral other parts were broken, 
which rendered it entirely ufelefs. This being the 
cafe, I did not think it worth carriage, but broke 
it to pieces, and gave the brafs-work to the Indi- 
ans, who cut it into {mall lumps, and made ule of 
it inftead of ball. 
On the twenty-third of October, feveral Cop- 
per anda few Dog-ribbed Indians came to our 
tents laden with furrs which they fold to fome 
of my crew for fuch iron-work as they had to. 
giveinexchange. This vifit, I afterwards found, 
was by appointment of the Copper Indians whom 
we had feen at Congecathawhachaga, and who, 
in their way to us, had met the Dog-ribbed Indi- 
ans, who were alfo glad of fo favourable an op- 
portunity of purchafing fome of thofe valuable 
articles, though at a very extravagant price: for 
one of the Indians in my company, though not 
properly of my party, got no lefs than forty 
beaver fkins, and fixty martins, for one piece of 
iron which he had ftole when he was laft at the 
Fort*. 
One of thofe ftrangers had about forty beaver 
fkins, with which he intended to pay Matonab- 
bee an old debt; but one of the other Indians 
feized 
* The piece of iron above mentioned was the coulter of a new-fafhioned 
plough, invented by Captain John Fowler, late Governor at Churchill 
River, with which he had a large piece of ground ploughed, and after- 
wards fowed with oats: but the part being nothing but a hot burniag 
fand, like the Spanifh lines at Gibraltar, the fuccefs may eafily be gueff: 
ed; which was, that it did not produce a fingle grain: 
2047 
1771. 
<I 
October, 
; 
2 jo 
