NORTHERN OCEAN 195 



The Indians who were the occasion of my undertaking 1771. 

 this journey, represented this mine to be so rich and valuable, ^^* 

 that if a factory were built at the river, a ship might be ballasted 

 with the oar, instead of stone ; and that with the same ease 



of greenstone. It is in these valleys, amongst the loose soil, that the Indians 

 search for copper. Amongst the specimens we picked up in these valleys, were 

 plates of native copper ; masses of pistacite containing native copper ; of trap 

 rock with associated native copper, green malachite, copper glance or variegated 

 copper ore and iron-shot copper green ; and of greenish-grey prehnite in trap 

 (the trap is felspar, deeply coloured with hornblende), with disseminated native 

 copper ; the copper, in some specimens, was crj^stallized in rhomboidal dode- 

 cahedrons. We also found some large tabular fragments, evidently portions 

 of a vein consisting of prehnite, associated with calcareous spar, and native 

 copper. The Indians dig wherever they observe the prehnite lying on the soil, 

 experience having taught them that the largest pieces of copper are found 

 associated with it. We did not observe the vein in its original repository, nor 

 does it appear that the Indians have found it, but judging from the specimens 

 just mentioned, it most probably traverses felspathose trap. We also picked 

 up some fragments of a greenish-grey coloured rock, apparently sandstone, 

 with disseminated variegated copper ore and copper glance ; likewise rhom- 

 boidal fragments of white calcareous spar, and some rock crystals. The 

 Indians report that they have found copper in every part of this range, which 

 they have examined for thirty or forty miles to the N.W\, and that the Esqui- 

 maux come hither to search for that metal. We afterwards found some ice- 

 chisels in possession of the latter people twelve or fourteen inches long, and 

 half-an-inch in diameter, formed of pure copper. 



" To the northward of the Copper Mountains, at the distance of ten miles, 

 in a direct line, a similar range of trap hills occurs, having, however, less altitude. 

 The intermediate country is uneven, but not hilly, and consists of a deep sandy 

 soil, which, when cut through by the rivulets, discloses extensive beds of light- 

 brownish red sandstone, which appears to belong to the new red sandstone 

 formation. The same rock having a thin slaty structure, and dipping to the 

 northward, forms perpendicular walls to the river, whose bed lies a hundred and 

 fifty feet below the level of the plain. The eminences in the plain are well 

 clothed with grass, and free from the large loose stones so common on the 

 Barren Grounds, but the ridges of trap are nearly destitute of vegetation. 



" Beyond the last-mentioned trap range, which is about twenty miles from 

 the sea, the countr}' becomes still more level, the same kind of sandstone con- 

 tinuing as a subsoil. The plains nourish only a coarse short grass, and the trees 

 which had latterly dwindled to small clumps, growing only on low points on 

 the edge of the river under shelter of the high bank, entirely disappear. A few 

 ranges of trap hills intersect this plain also, but they have much less elevation 

 than those we passed higher up the stream. 



" The river in its section of the plain, as far as Bloody Fall, presents alter- 

 nately cliffs of reddish sandstone, and red-coloured slaty indurated clay or 

 marl, and shelving white clay banks. At Bloody Fall, the stream cuts through a 



