Boat building and net making are two arts that the prospector will do well to master. A few weeks passed in a building yard, and a half dozen lessons from an old fisherman will teach him all that he requires of these simple but extremely useful accomplishments.
The best food for sustaining life in the north is pemmican. It was once made out of buffalo meat, but now the flesh of the moose, or caribou, or of the deer, is substituted. The meat is cut in thin flakes and air-dried; then a mixture is made of one-third dried meat, one-third pure haunch fat, and one-third service berries (A. canadensis). These are rammed by main force into a bag of green hide, and pounded until as solid as a rock. Such a solid mass of food will keep for years in a cool climate.
Perhaps the reader may be inclined to exclaim: "Why so much about the North; why not more about the East, South or West?" My reply to such would be: Because the great finds of the future will surely be made in the North. Dr. G. W. Dawson, the best authority on the subject, has said there are 1,000,000 square miles of virgin territory in Canada to-day, and no doubt a very large proportion of it contains mineral deposits. This 1,000,000 square miles he divides into sixteen separate areas, some half as large as Ireland, others half that of Europe, and in none of them has the footfall of a white man yet been echoed.
CHAPTER VII.
SURVEYING.
A man, to make a success of prospecting, must have what is known as "a good eye for a country." Given that faculty he will readily pick up the little knowledge of surveying that is sometimes almost indispensable. A tape measure, and a prismatic or surveying compass, are all that he is likely to require in laying off to his own satisfaction the extent of his claim, or any similar simple operation. The surveying compass has two fixed sights, and a Jacob staff mounting, into which a wooden support is inserted. The north end of the compass is always pointed ahead, while the needle, which of course indicates the magnetic north, gives the bearing of the line run toward that north. Now, magnetic north is not by any means the same thing as true north, in fact in very few localities on the earth's surface are they the same, and then never for long. In the extreme east of the United States the needle points some twenty degrees to the west of true north, and in Alaska it points thirty-five degrees to the eastward of it. There is therefore one meridian somewhere in the central valley where the true north corresponds with the magnetic north, but as the magnetic pole is always shifting this never remains true of the same meridian for long.
SURVEYING COMPASS.
When there is no local magnetism from iron ores, or rocks containing magnetite, the needle is fairly reliable, though never perfectly accurate, but when such attraction exists the compass is unsatisfactory. Such areas of attraction, however, are usually limited, and by squinting back, taking what is known as a "back sight," a local attraction may be detected, and in that case ranging by rods must be resorted to until the compass needle once more seeks its true position. To range by rods the course of the line having been determined by retracing the route followed to the last reliable mark, a stake is driven in at that point, and the surveyor standing some little distance behind it on the correct line directs an assistant to place another rod in such a position that the first hides it from view. It will then be on a prolongation of the line, and this operation being continued the surveyor will, in due time, find himself beyond the reach of the local attraction that deflected his needle and can resume compass work.
A chain is 66 feet long. Oftentimes in mountainous or brush-covered countries a half chain of 33 feet, made of light wire links, is preferred. Two men do the chaining, which could of course be done by means of an ordinary tape measure in an emergency, the leader carrying ten pins of iron or wood, and the rear man taking one up as each chain is measured off. When all are used, ten chains (1/8 mile) have been covered. The men exchange pins and the tally man, usually the hind chainman, calls out "Tally one," and cuts a notch in a stick. Careful chaining is the essence of good surveying. The chain must always be kept horizontal, or else an allowance made for the inclination at which it was held when the measurement was taken, otherwise the results will be misleading, for all surveyors' measurements of areas are theoretically on a flat surface.
