“A heavy diabase dyke, crossing Dubawnt river at Loudon rapids, cuts the surrounding acid eruptions, and is clearly newer than they. It is also interesting to note that the rocks in this vicinity are very freely stained with green carbonate of copper, indicating the presence of a considerable amount of copper disseminated through the rock, just as copper occurs under similar conditions in similar rocks south of Lake Superior.
“Lithologically the whole of this terrain presents a remarkable resemblance to the red sandstones and quartz-porphyries of the Keewenawan (copper-bearing) rocks of Lake Superior. This resemblance is so strongly marked that small hand-specimens of the rocks from the shore of Dubawnt lake are usually indistinguishable from specimens from Lake Superior.
“Native copper was nowhere found, but it is not unlikely that it may occur in the vicinity of some of these basic dykes.”
Mr. Tyrrell then proceeds to discuss the deposits of native copper in the far north as already quoted in this chapter and continues:—
“Besides copper a narrow vein of pure galena has been found on the shore of Bathurst inlet.
“Whether any other metals but copper and lead will be found in that region remains to be discovered, but the evidence of the presence of Animikie slates and limestones would indicate the possibility of the occurrence of silver, such as was found at Silver islet on Lake Superior.
“This northern country, which, as we have seen, gives abundant evidence of rich mineral wealth, has up to the present been very remote from any settlements, but now it can actually
Be Reached With Very Little Trouble
and expense either from Mackenzie river or from Hudson bay, and its general even unmountainous character would render the building of roads across it a matter of comparatively little difficulty.
“From Mackenzie river to Great Bear lake is only sixty-five miles, and from that lake to Coppermine river only another sixty-five miles, while the Keewenawan rocks on Baker lake may be reached by ocean-going steamers which can ascend Chesterfield inlet to its head, which is open for three months of the year. From the head of Chesterfield inlet it is only four hundred miles, over a gently undulating country, to the east end of Great Slave lake, or five hundred and eighty miles to Copper mountains west of Coppermine river.