CLXXVI 
JOURN Eav Toy ne ol CY SEA: 
the thick horns of the Buffalo. Their arms are fpears, darts, and bows and ar- 
rows ; the laft pointed with ftone or copper, but moft rudely made, for want of 
proper tools. In their drefs they much refemble the E/Rimaux of Hudfon’s Bay, 
but the tails of their jackets are fhorter ; neither do the women, like them, ftiffen 
out the tops of their boots. Their canoes differ in not having long projecting prows, 
but in other refpects are of the fame conftruction. In moft circumftances thefe 
people refemble thofe of the Bay; and differ materially only in one, for the 
men in thefe pull out by the roots all the hair of their heads\—Mr, Hearne firft 
{aw the fea on Fuly 16, at the diftance of eight miles. He went to the mouth 
of the river (in lat. 72; weft long. from London 121) which he found full of fhoals 
and falls, and inacceffible to the tide, which feemed to flow twelve or fourteen 
feet. The fea was at this time full of ice, and on many pieces he faw Seals. 
The land trended both to the eaft and to the weft, and the fea was full of iflands. 
The land about Copper river, for the {pace of nine or ten miles to the fea, con- 
fifted of fine marfhes, filled in many places with tall Willow, but no fort of berry- 
bearing fhrubs. There are no woods within thirty miles of the mouth of Copper 
river ; and thofe which then appear, confift of ill-fhaped and ftunted Pines. 
The people who live neareft to this river, are the Copper-mine Indians, and 
the Plat-cotes de Chiens, or Dog-ribbed Indians ; thefe have no direct commerce 
with Hud/on’s Bay, but fell their furs to the more fouthern Indians, who come 
for them, and bring them down to. the fettlements. The Dog-ribbed Indians 
ftill make their knives of ftones and bones, and head their arrows with flate. 
The Copper Indians have abundance of native copper in their country ; they 
make with it ice-chiflels and arrow-heads. The mine is not known ; but I 
find that an Jndian chief, who had many years ago communication with a Mr, 
Frof, one of the Company’s fervants, fays, that the copper was ftruck off a rack 
with fharp ftones ; and that it lay in certain iflands far to the northward, where 
was no night during fummer *. 
Mr. Hearne fet out on his return the 22d of uly. He took, in fome places, a 
route different from what he did in going, and. got to the fettlements in Fuve 1772, 
I have perufed the journal, and had frequent converfation with Mr. Hearne the 
Jaft year. I took the liberty to queftion him about the waters he had croffed 
during winter upon the ice ; and whether they might not have been at that time 
obftructed ftreights, a paflage to the Pacific Ocean ? He affured me, that he could 
make no miftake: that he pafled over many of them in canoes during the fum- 
* Dobbs's Account of Hudfan’s Bay, &c. 47» 
mer, 
