222 A JOURNEY TO THE 



1771. gale of wind from the North West put us in great disorder ; 

 October. £.^^ though the few woods we passed had furnished us with 

 tent-poles and fewel, yet they did not afford us the least shelter 

 whatever. The wind blew with such [207] violence, that in 

 spite of all our endeavours, it overset several of the tents, and 

 mine, among the rest, shared the disaster, which I cannot 

 sufficiently lament, as the but-ends of the weather tent-poles 

 fell on the quadrant,^ and though it was in a strong wainscot 

 case, two of the bubbles, the index, and several other parts 

 were broken, which rendered it entirely useless. This being 

 the case, I did not think it worth carriage, but broke it to 

 pieces, and gave the brass-work to the Indians, who cut it into 

 small lumps, and made use of it instead of ball. 

 23d. On the twenty-third of October, several Copper and a few 

 Dog-ribbed Indians came to our tents laden with furrs, which 

 they sold to some of my crew for such iron-work as they had 

 to give in exchange. This visit, I afterwards found, was by 

 appointment of the Copper Indians whom we had seen at 

 Congecathawhachaga, and who, in their way to us, had met 

 the Dog-ribbed Indians, who were also glad of so favourable 

 an opportunity of purchasing some of those valuable articles, 

 though at a very extravagant price : for one of the Indians in 

 my company, though not properly of my party, got no less 

 than forty beaver skins, and sixty martins, for one piece of 

 iron which he had stole when he was last at the Fort.* 



[^ There is no evidence that any observations for latitude had been taken 

 since he left Congecathawhachaga. Possibly the quadrant had been left behind 

 with the women at that place, to be picked up again when he returned. But 

 now with the destruction of the quadrant, all uncertainty as to the character 

 of the remainder of his survey is set at rest. His distances were estimated, 

 and the general directions were doubtless taken with a magnetic compass, while 

 observations for latitude were impossible.] 



* The piece of iron above mentioned was the coulter of a new-fashioned 

 plough, invented by Captain John Fowler, late Governor of Churchill River, 

 with which he had a large piece of ground ploughed, and afterwards sowed 

 with oats : but the part being nothing but a hot burning sand, like the Spanish 

 lines at Gibraltar, the success may easily be guessed ; which was, that it did 

 not produce a single grain. 



