INTRODUCTION 43 



has still less claim to our indulgence, as his assertions are 

 [xxiii] a greater tax on our credulity. His saying that he 

 discovered several large lumps of the finest virgin copper * 

 is such a palpable falsehood that it needs no refutation. No 

 man, either English or Indian, ever found a bit of copper in 

 that country to the South of the seventy-first degree of lati- 

 tude," unless it had been accidentally dropped by some of the 

 far Northern Indians in their way to the Company's Factory. 



The natives who range over, rather than inhabit, the large 

 tract of land which lies to the North of Churchill River, having 

 repeatedly brought samples of copper to the Company's Factory, 

 many of our people conjectured that it was found not far from 

 our settlements ; and as the Indians informed them that 

 the mines were not very distant from a large river, it was 

 generally supposed that this river must empty itself into Hud- 

 son's Bay ; as they could by no means think that any set of 

 people, however wandering their manner of life might be, could 

 ever traverse so large a tract of country as to pass the Northern 

 boundary of that Bay, and particularly without the assistance 

 of water-carriage. The following Journal, however, will show 

 how much those people have been mistaken, and prove also the 

 improbability of putting their favourite scheme of mining into 

 practice. 



[xxiv] The accounts of this grand River, which some have 

 turned into a Strait, together with the samples of copper, were 

 brought to the Company's Factory at Churchill River immedi- 

 ately after its first establishment, in the year one thousand seven 

 hundred and fifteen ; and it does not appear that any attempts 

 were made to discover either the river or mines till the year 



* American Traveller, p. 23.^ 



[^ The American Traveller is speaking of the possibility of opening up a 

 trade in copper, and he says that in 1744 he discovered several large lumps of 

 copper, but he doubtless meant that he was shown it by the natives, or found 

 it with them.] 



P As Heame's latitudes of the Coppermine River are much too far north, 

 this should be changed to read "the sixty-seventh degree of latitude."] 



