FOREST AND STREAM^ 
189 
variety. There are mackiutoshed fabrics made into hunt- 
ing, fishing and yachting suits and hats, caddy bags, 
pouches, gun cases, ammunition bags. The material is 
composite, that is the waterproofing compound is finely 
united between two fabrics, and, we are informed, coti- 
tains no rubber or other material which will oxidize, and is 
not affected by climatic conditions in any part of the 
world. It also is odorless. A coat and hat, set under a 
shower of water, where it has been for hours and days 
without being penetrated by the water, testifies to its 
utility. Mr. W. L. Bratton is in charge. 
Remington Arms Co. 
The Remington Arms Company, Ilion, N. Y., and 313 
Broadway, New York city, manufacturers of firearms, 
bicycles and sewing machines, occupy two spaces, Nos. 
21 and 23. A large new, mahogany case, occupying nearly 
the full length of the exhibit, is filled with guns from 
end to end, samples of the product of this great company. 
There are magazine, sporting and military rifles, shotguns 
of different gauges and qualities, double derringer pis- 
tols, etc. The rifle display is the largest, and is very com- 
plete in the multitude of varieties, which the visitors may 
view in detail as they stand in a long row in the mam- 
moth case. The exhibit is in charge of Mr, W. H. 
Grimshaw. 
Bridgeport Gun Implement Co. 
The Bridgeport Gun Implement Company, of 313 Broad- 
way, New York, makers of golf goods, pedals, gun imple- 
ments, etc., has Spaces 24 and 25, mostly devoted to 
golfing features. The exhibit portrays a rustic scene, the 
background representing the Ardsley Golf Club links, 
which has a view commanding the Hudson River. The 
foreground represents a putting green. Golf clubs, caddy 
bags, golf balls, etc., are on exhibition. 
The Tubular Fly Co. 
Space No. 35 contains the exhibit of the Tubular Fly 
Company, of Brooklyn, L. I., the title denoting the 
product of the company. Dr. R. B. Cantrell, the in- 
ventor of the fly, is in charge. A delicate tube of alum- 
inum or copper is wound as a trout or bass fly, which 
can be slipped on hooks of three different sizes, or from 
one hook on which the snell is injured, to a sound one. 
The telescope fly is another of the Doctor's inventions, 
built on the tubular idea. Heads, wings, hackles and 
body are on tubes which fit together, so that from a small 
amount of material a multitude of varieties may be made 
very quickly. 
Lafiin & Rand Powder Co. 
Spaces 45 and 46 are devoted to the exhibit of the 
Laflin & Rand Powder Company, 99 Cedar street. New 
York. Sections of three mammoth cannons, 8-inch, 10- 
inch and 12-inch, showing the breech mechanism and 
powder chambers, with the sacks of powder and shell or 
armor-piercing projectile placed in the latter, illustrate 
the enormous consuming capacity of the modern cannon, 
with a suggestion of its terrific po\ver. Fastened to the 
wall, one above another, they are an interesting object 
lesson. The load in the 8-inch bore is marked, powder, 
7S pounds; projectile, 300 pounds; lo-inch, powder, 160 
pounds ; projectile, 575 pounds ; 12-inch, powder, 265 
pounds, projectile, 1,000 pounds. The powder, in different 
stages of manufacture, is shown in sample lots. The in- 
gredients of the powder are mixed with a heavy paste or 
glue, called collodion, which hardens into a semi-trans- 
parent yellowish mass. While in a soft state, it is forced 
through dies, when it is in long strings somewhat re- 
sembling a large violin string. Revolving knives cut the 
Strings into the smaller cylindrical sections, which pro- 
duces the finished powder. The resisting quality of the 
powder to water is shown by a coil submerged in a bowl ; 
taken out, it burns as freely as dry powder. Samples of 
the various grades of black and smokeless are also shown, 
while on the wall are two groups of rifles, shotguns and 
revolvers, a part of the kinds of firearms in which their 
powders are used. The exhibit is in charge of the secre- 
tary of the company, Mr. A. W. Higgins. 
New Departure Trunk Co. 
Space No. 8 is occupied by the New Departure Trunk 
Compan3'. of 78 Summer street, Boston, Mass. Samples 
of their trunks and traveling outfits are on exhibition. 
The sportsmen's trunks are specially constructed with a 
view to the safe and economical carriage of guns, car- 
tridges, shooting outfits, etc., and for the fisherman a 
trunk is provided with compartments for fishing rods, 
tackle, flies, etc. They are very strongly made and are 
declared to be waterproof. This company, besides making 
trunks specially adapted to the needs of sportsmen, also 
makes trunks specially adapted to the needs of theatrical 
people, horsemen, army officers, express men, salesmen, 
etc. 
Mechanical Fabric Co. 
Space 16 is devoted to an interesting display of the 
products of the Mechanical Fabric Company, of Provi- 
dence, R. I., their specialty being air mattresses, pillows 
and cushions. They show camp mattresses, with or 
without pillow attached, ship or yacht mattresses, steamer 
cushions, canoe cushions. A tent also is shown, fur- 
nished with the company's products, and intended to show 
the furni-shing of an ideal camp with a view to comfort, 
neatness and economy. The ship and yacht mattresses 
and canoe and boat cushions can be used as life preservers 
in an emergency. Messrs. J. N. Gardner & Co., and Mr. 
E. V. Wixom are in charge. 
Taxidermy. 
The most interesting object in the taxidermy exhibit is 
the record moose head secured in New Brunswick last 
year by Mr. Maximilian Foster. This is shown by Fred 
Sauter. Thos. W. Franie has som.e canital specimens of 
^ame heads and fishes; and Wm. W. Hart & Co. make a 
large showing of heads of game, mounted specimens and 
examples of taxidermy house furnishings. 
The Forest .\nb Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence Intended for publication should reach us at the 
fatest by Monday and as much earlier as practicable. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST 
Special Arctic Numbet. 
CHICAGO; 111., March 3— By all rights the week's story 
from Chicago should bear the title of "Special Arctic 
Number." I here are in it two far Northern explorers and 
a snow storm. 
To begin with the snow storm; it came to us last 
Wednesday and Thursday, and its results are with us yet 
in drifts and piles of snow 2 or 3 feet deep. The storm 
was the heaviest seen here for the past sixteen years, and 
gives this city an aspect something short of the general 
appearance of a Persian garden. As the storm was gen- 
eral through this whole section of country, its effects 
upon the quail crop can hardly fail of being disastrous, 
more especially over lower Michigan and Wisconsin and 
upper Illinois and Indiana. At this late date the birds 
are naturally more weak than they are at the beginning 
of cold weather, and only the previous mildness of the 
current winter season leaves hope for the welfare of the 
quail. The snow lies over a foot in depth all over the 
ground, and that leaves little feed exposed for the birds 
to get. The temperature is not very low this week— not 
nearly so cold as it was two weeks ago, and there is 
hope that this heavy snow will move off soon, though the 
weather slate for the next twenty-four hours says more 
snow to-morrow. St. Louis liad more than a foot of this 
snow, and all over lower Illinois the depth runs from 8 
inches to a foot. In Indiana the storm assumed the still 
more dangerous form of a heavj' sleet, which covers the 
ground under the snow with a coat of ice, impervious to 
the efforts of the birds trying to get to the ground feed. 
At Detroit the snow lies now 14 inches deep. The storm 
cuts lower Michigan in half, not troubling the region 
north of the lower five counties. In Texas it is reported 
to have been a blizzard. As it is tiow approaching spring- 
time, it is supposed that a thaw will soon follow, but this 
will fairly flood tlie country, and may give us what is 
known as a wet spring, a condition notoriously bad for 
the breeding of the game birds, whose ordinary haunts are 
then too damp for nest building. These are the most 
gloomy views to be taken of the matter, and it may be 
that they are not to be borne out by later facts; but it is 
just such unfavorable seasons which give us the "bad 
years" in shooting. 
Chariie Norris and the Far North. 
More than a year ago mention was made in these col- 
umns of the adventurous trip made by Chas. W. Norris, 
of this city, in the far North, between Edmonton and the 
headwaters of the Pelly River. Mr. Norris' exciting and 
well-night fatal ride on a raft down the Peace River from 
Fort Graham to the Athabasca waters, and his toilsome 
journey thence back to Edmonton,, were at that time re- 
ferred to, and they impressed one at the time as about the 
most interesting story of wild life of an actual sort of 
which any recent account has come to hand. 
Mr. Norris, it should be remembered, was not equipped 
with a sporting outfit, was not in the country for sport at 
all, except in an incidental way, and indeed had no out- 
fit at all. He was leader of a party of less than a dozen 
men who were hunting gold, who made a desperate at- 
tempt to reach the head of the Pelly from Edmonton, 
Alberta. His party having perforce scattered when far 
up into the mountain country, Mr. Norris was robbed 
and deserted by the men who had remained with him, 
and was left in the wildest part of America alone, with- 
out a boat, with no food, with no bedding. He had only 
his rifle and ammunition and a sack of oats which had 
been left near by, and which was useless to him. Thus 
circumstanced, Mr. Norris did not despair, hut showed 
himself the real adventurer and the real woodsman. He 
went into a little slack water creek and floated out some 
dead logs, binding them together with willows into a raft, 
which he made two tiers deep, and on which he put a 
bank of earth, so that he could build a fire. He rigged a 
steering post and got a long sweep for a steering oar, and 
thus ill-equipped began a journey whose parallel is not 
known in the annals of hardihood in the Northwest. 
This was in May, the whole winter having been spent 
by the party in getting thus far toward the doubtful goal 
on which their minds were set. He started from a point 
350 miles west of the Rocky Mountains — indeed, from the 
Cascade regions — and he lives to tell the story. He shot 
such ducks as he could from the raft, over which he 
could have but little control in the swift current, and lived 
on such of the dead ducks as he could gather as he swept 
on. He found rapids and whirling water enough, and 
was once aground with his heavy craft just above a bad 
rapid, but managed to pry off the raft with a pole and 
catch as it whirled away, coming through somehow. 
They told him after he got through that he must have 
run the Vermilion Falls to get through, but he knows little 
of that, except that he "got fearfully wet one night." He 
was much exhausted most of the time. When he reached 
Edmonton in the fall he was not recognized by those who 
there saw him set out six months earlier. 
That was the whole of the Edmonton outfitting story. 
They wanted to sell outfits to parties, and they never did 
expect or want them to come back again, and few of them 
ever did come back who started up the Peace. There is prob- 
ably no tougher trail known in the mountains of North Amer- 
ica than this same so-called Edmonton "trail," which was 
touted by the supply houses as a "road," and which ^yas 
.so shown on the maps. A moje heartless and more crim- 
inal traffic was never inaugurated on the face of the globe 
than that which for a few guilty months^ flourished at 
Edmonton, more or less under the connivance of the 
Canadian Government. It was said that Surveyor-Gen- 
eral Ogilvy had located a trail from the Pelly to Edmon- 
ton, but as a matter of fact he only came out that way 
with Indians, and no one knew better than he that he 
could not find that "trail" a second time. 
This wild reerion is there to-day, waiting for full ex- 
ploration and fuller knowledge. It is one of the best big 
game countries to be found — moose, bear and sheep being 
very numerous, as well as all fur-bearing animals. Norris 
said his men were much frightened by the wolverines, 
which were very numerous and bold much of the time. 
He killed many bears and much other garae.^ Of the 
party which started with Norris but very little is known. 
One of them, Geo. H, Thomas, of Chicago, is known now 
to have died at Peel River or Rat River. Buffalo Jones 
brought out a letter from Thomas when he came through 
that region at the carry of the Peel River, 'coming out 
from his musk-ox trip (which was exclusively described 
in these columns at that time). Thomas was one of the 
Norris party who abandoned the original idea of ascend- 
ing the Peace, and who took boat down the Macitenzie,, 
intending to reach the Klondike in that way. This was 
long ago, but he never reached his goal. Dierks, Norris' 
orginial partner, who went on with the horses while Nor- 
ris and the others kept the water trail, is known to have 
wintered at Sylvester's Landing, and he was heard from 
once after that, a letter having gotten back in some mys- 
terious way or another from the Black River, west of Fin- 
ley. Dr. Bennett, of Chicago, brought out news from 
Dierks. The former came out with Cayuse Graham, a 
Peace River trapper, and the news comes that Graham and 
another gentleman later overtook Dierks in the Black 
River country, and relieved him in turn of the things he 
did not need to carry with him. Such are some of the 
ways of the far North, and some of the strange examples 
of the way news gets across country in the mountains. 
So much for details, and for a .setting to the story which 
Charlie Norris is going to tell the readers of the Forest 
AND Stream one of these days, I have never been able 
to get him to write anything, and by mere luck found him 
after a long disappearance, but now he promises to be 
good. Especial interest attaches to all these facts person- 
ally, from the reason that Norris is one of my personal 
friends and an old-time companion on many a trout 
stream. His story may be relied upon as true. He may 
add to tliis story later, for next spring he is going back 
into much the same sort of an experience, though in a dif- 
ferent part of the North. 
Bigger than Niagara. 
Norris tell me that very little is accurately known of 
that upper Peace River country, the maps being for the 
most part guess work, rivers being often put down as 
emptying into such and such a stream, when their course 
is quite different. He says tliat the falls of the Peace River, 
at Hudson's Hope, the portage of the Rockies, surpass the 
Niagara Falls in grandeur. There arc twelve miles of 
awful rapids there in which nothing can live, logs being 
ground to splinters as they come through. "Niagara is a 
baby to it," says Norris, and he ought to know, for he has 
seen them both. 
Norris says that the severity of the climate up there is 
much misunderstood. They had a thermometer 40 and 50 
below zero, but he says that any one who_ can stand the 
Chicago climate can live up there in a bathing suit. Very 
reticent, he has not yet told much to anybody about his 
experience in the North, and we may hope for something 
of interest when he does. 
The Northern Limit of the Jacksnipe, 
Last week mention was made of Mr. Ruthven Dean's 
investigation of the Southern breeding limit of the jack- 
snipe, he speaking of nests of this bird in Indiana. Mr. 
Norris gives equally interesting testimony as the other 
extreme of the bird's habitat. He says the jacksnipe 
breed in very large numbers near the upper end of Lesser 
Slave La,ke. 
Where the Canvasbacks Breed. 
I remember once recording the expressed belief of a 
gentleman of some acquaintance with natural history, that 
the canvasback duck bred nowhere but in Siberia, no 
nest having ever been seen in America. Mr. Norris says 
that these birds breed above the Great Slave Lake, mak- 
ing their nests not on the marshy ground, but upon the 
moss which covers all that Arctic country north of the 
timber line. He gets this from Frank Bennett and Frank 
Green, of Fort Chippewayan, who are old residents of the 
region along the Hudson Bay trails. 
And the Indian Duck Egg Story. 
I asked Mr. Norris what he knew of the alleged de- 
struction of duck eggs by Indians or others in the far 
North, and whetiicr he could find any ground for the story 
that the eggs of wild ducks were shipped or made an arti- 
cle of commerce. 
"There are more ducks destroyed by the Indians in that 
country than by all the shooters of America," he declares, 
somewhat to my surprise. "The men living in the Slave 
Lake region told me that they estimated that 15,000,000 
eggs were gathered each summer by the different Indian 
tribes, who make this one big source of their food supply. 
Others told me they thought 50,000,000 would be nearer 
the truth, but of course no actual count is possible." 
"Are these eggs ever shipped out of the country or 
sold?" I asked him. 
"No," he replied, "they don't sell tliem or ship them, at 
least not out of that country, though they may carry them 
around among themselves. You see, they have no boxes 
or barrels. They keep these eggs in baskets woven 
of rushes. They gather them clear through the summer, 
and if there happens to be a little duck in the egg it does 
not make any difference to them. They keep the whole 
lot of them, and eat them as they like later." 
"How thick are the eggs to be found on the nesting 
grounds?" I asked him. 
"Oh, pretty thick," he said. "I've seen half a dozen 
nests on a place not 12 feet square. They get a lot of 
them." 
"Did you see them doing this yourself?" 
"I should say I did. At the Lesser Slave Lake was 
where they were at work this way. All that marsh is soft 
and boggy, and the Indians go out on the bogs on their 
snowshoes, and get to the nests that way." 
"What varieties of duck are those mostly affected by 
this?" he was then asked, and he answered: 
"Mostly redheads, mallards, teal and wood duck. T 
saw no eider ducks there. On the Peace River I used tc 
see those big old eider ducks sweeping down the river, 
and they flew fast enough, I can tell you." 
Having at last treed this nervy speciment of the Amerf- 
can sportsman, we may leave him for the time, with the 
hope of hearing from him at length in regard to that far- 
off Northern land, the best big game country now left on 
this continent, of which so little is really known, but 
which is yearly coming closer and closer to the sportsmen 
of this part of the world, ^ 
