DOWN THE MACKENZIE 



133 



I found the bed of edible clay, mentioned by Richardson, 1 

 near the base of the cliff. It is used for whitewashing at Nor- 

 man, and is said to have been used as a substitute for soap by the 

 Indians before the introduction of that article by the traders. 2 



Norman stands at the mouth of the Bear River near the Bear 

 Rock, a solitary butte over four thousand feet in height. 

 Below Norman the banks of the river were lined with mud- 

 covered floes of rapidly melting ice, which had been deposited 

 fifty feet above the ordinary level of the river, owing to an ice 

 jam which had formed at the Ramparts, just south of Good 

 Hope. At that point the river contracts to a width of less than 

 a quarter of a mile and flows between vertical limestone cliffs, 

 two hundred feet in height; the narrowness of the stream, and 

 the sharp angle which it makes in its course, causes the ice to 

 gorge on a tremendous scale at the time of its disruption in the 

 spring. 



We anchored before Good Hope at 11 p. m., June 12th. Mr. 

 C. P. Gaudette, a veteran who had been over forty years in the 

 Company's service, was in charge of the post. With his kind 

 assistance, I engaged an Indian to take me back in a canoe to 

 the Ramparts, the following day. Fossils were abundant in the 

 cliffs, but neither time nor transportation facilities permitted 

 making as large a collection as I could have wished. 



"As to volcanoes, there are some along the north side of the Grand River 

 [Mackenzie], at a little distance this side of Bear Lake River and which are 

 visible from this river. From these, issue several columns of smoke which 

 have a strong smell of coal and sulpher. I was told by Mr. John Thain, 

 one who had personally inspected them, that the fire was not above a foot 

 under ground; the flames are pale and the smoke black; the holes from 

 which the blazes appear, are small and numerous. No irruptions, such as 

 are experienced in the Eastern hemisphere, ever occurred here to the 

 knowledge of the Indians." Masson, L. R., Les Bourgeois, Vol. I, p. 79. 



Lignite was burning for several miles on either side of the Mackenzie, 

 above Bear Lake River, in 1836. Simpson, Thomas, Narrative, p. 97. 



1 " A pipe-clay is very generally associated with the coal beds, and is fre- 

 quently found in contact with the lignite. It exists in beds varying in 

 thickness from six inches to a foot, and is generally of a yellowish-white 

 color, but in some places has a light lake-red tint. It is smooth, without 

 grittiness, and when masticated has a flavor somewhat like the kernel of a 

 hazel-nut. * * The natives eat this earth in times of scarcity, and suppose 

 that thereby they prolong their lives." Arctic Searching Expedition, p. 118. 



8 Ibid, p. 119. 



