BY MACKENJZIE'S RIVER. 
23 
summer, and is succeeded by a shorter and finer covering *. 
There is another animal of still greater interest, which the 
traders call the Goat, and which would appear to be a spe- 
cies of antelope. Its horns, smooth, short, and black, are 
directed backwards, with a slight curvature. It is about 
the size of a sheep, and, in the winter, has a coat of long 
curled hair, said to be of a silky fineness and lustre. It 
springs with great agility from precipice to precipice, and 
possessing, like the sheep, a very quick eye, its capture is 
attended with much difficulty. I have heard that the skins 
of these animals have been sent to Europe ; but neither of 
them have hitherto been taken alive t. A very large kind 
of rein-deer is also found on those mountains. 
The natives make knives of a white translucent stone, 
which they detach in large sharp-edged flakes, by greasing 
a portion of the rock, and kindling a fire upon it. 
They also dig up an edible unctuous earth, similar, pro- 
bably, to that which is found at the mouth of the Orinooko ; 
and use as a pigment a mineral substance, which they find 
at the bottom of a small subterraneous stream. It is in the 
form of round, flattish, ponderous grains, of a shining black 
colour, with a greasy feel, and adheres to the skin only when 
mixed with grease. A large specimen of native silver was 
also found in that neighbourhood in 1796. 
Near the Great Bear Lake River, there are some coal- 
mines on fire. And there are several fountains of mineral- 
pitch, one in particular, which rises in the channel of the 
river, at a spot, which, from that circumstance, is named 
the Flaming Point. 
* Specimens of the head of this animal were sent from Hudson's Bay by 
William Auld, Esq. to Professor Jameson, and proved to be the true Ar- 
gali. — Edit. 
-h The animal described in the text appears to be the Rocky-movmtaiu 
Sheep of the Americans, noticed by Professor Jameson in the third volume 
of the Wornerian Memoirs, p. 306. — Edit. 
