Bibliographical Notices. 177 



Hind's narrative ; but all the facts brought forward by him assist in 

 proving that the Indians are gradually diminishing in numbers. The 

 instinct of hunting is strong in the Indian ; and even the half-breeds, 

 or children of white men by Indian mothers, exhibit the same ten- 

 dency in its fullest extent. This constitutes one of the greatest 

 difficulties in the way of preserving the remnant of these interesting 

 tribes. Mr. Hind, like all other unprejudiced observers, sees clearly 

 that the work of civilization must precede that of christanization ; 

 but so great is the love of the wild life of the prairie-hunter both in 

 Indians and half-breeds that it is almost impossible to keep them in 

 a stationary and settled condition, without which all efforts at culti- 

 vation are useless. Indeed such a condition of life on the part of 

 the Indians is so much against the interests of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, within whose territory these explorations have been car- 

 ried on, that they appear to be rather lukewarm in the matter 

 and give but cold encouragement to the efforts of missionaries, as 

 the adoption of a settled mode of life and the eschewhig of " fire- 

 water" would undoubtedly cause a very great falling off in the sup- 

 ply of skins. In fact all the habits of these native tribes seem to tend 

 directly towards their rapid extinction : their fondness for spirits, 

 their love of scalp-taking with its attendant wars, and their utter 

 improvidence would alone be sufficient to account for a steady 

 diminution in their numbers ; but when we read Mr. Hind's account 

 of the reckless manner in which they destroy one of their main sup- 

 plies of game, the Buffalo — nay, actually drive these beasts from their 

 hunting-grounds by carelessly setting fire to the prairies, thus in- 

 creasing every year the dfficulty of obtaining their necessary sup- 

 plies, we can no longer wonder that the race of the red man seems 

 doomed. 



Mr. Hind states that the hunters of the Red River district firmly 

 believe in the existence of two kinds of Buffalo, which they call the 

 " prairie Buffalo " and the " Buffalo of the woods." These two 

 supposed species are said to differ in size, colour, hair, and horns. 

 The skin of the " wood Buffalo " is much larger than that of the 

 common animal ; the hair is very short, and the mane is not curled. 

 Two skins, said to be those of the wood Buffalo, seen by Mr. Hind 

 in Selkirk settlement, bore a very close resemblance to the skin of the 

 Lithuanian Bison. The wood Buffalo is said to be very scarce, and 

 to occur only to the north of the river Saskatchewan and on the 

 flanks of the Rocky Mountains. This point might be worth the 

 attention of some of our sporting Englishmen, who seem to find no 

 country too distant now-a-days for their hunting excursions. 



The geology of the Great Basin of Lake Winnipeg, of course, con- 

 stitutes a prominent feature in this narrative, and many sections are 

 described in the course of the work. The eastern boundary of the 

 basin, and in fact the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg itself, is 

 formed by the metamorphic rocks belonging to the Laurentian 

 system of Sir Wm. Logan and Mr. Hunt, which constitute a chain of 

 mountains running from the north bank of the St. Lawrence past 

 Lake Superior, and then passing in a north-westerly direction to the 



Ann. i>j Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol viii. 12 



