22 
ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE SEA 
part of the clothing of Mr Livingston's party in the huts 
of those they destroyed. 
A second attempt to reacii the sea was made by Mr 
Clarke in 1809. He descended the river as far as the 
assemblage of islands which form the various channels of 
which Sir Alexander Mackenzie speaks; but here a 
numerous party of Eskimaux, occupying both banks of the 
river, put themselves in such a menacing attitude, that it 
was deemed prudent to return, without making any attempt 
either to land or to proceed farther. 
In 1810, a large shoal of porpoises came up to Fort 
Good-Hope, to the great grief of the natives, who declared 
that such visits were always attended by a falling olF in the 
fishery, which accordingly proved very bad that season. 
This fact, we think, tends to prove the near vicinity of the 
sea, and that Sir Alexander Mackenzie either actually 
saw it, or was within a very short distance of it. 
The country through which Mackenzie's River flows, 
appears to offer a fine field for a naturalist, and we have had 
many interesting accounts of it from those who have resided 
there. It is well worthy the attention of a mineralogist, 
who would have an opportunity of viewing the operations 
of Nature on a grand scale. The rocky mountains range 
along the western side of the river, at a greater or smaller 
distance from its banks ; in some places receding to the dis- 
tance of 70 miles, at others approaching the very verge of 
the stream? and at one spot below the Great Bear Lake Hi ver, 
a continuance of the same ridge appears on the eastern side 
of the river. 
A kind of sheep frequents those mountains, which, from 
description, appears to resemble, or to be the same with, the 
Argall, or Ovis montana. It has very large, striated, spiral 
horns, and is clothed in the winter with a thick coarse coat 
of hair^ like that of the reio-dcer, whicli falls off in tlie 
