DE MOFRAS EXPLORATION OF OREGON

mated at more than five million francs, or two hundred thousand pounds sterling, in an ordinary year 11 . To give an idea of this immense commerce, we will limit ourselves to giving from the official abstract the quantity of principal goods sold at public auction Decem- ber 20, and January 17, last: Muskrat 528,000 B eaver 4 22,000 Brown and black bear 4,000 Fox—silver, red, black, and white 7,000 Wolf and wolverine 10,000 Lynx 7,000 Ermine ._ 18,000 Marten | 60,000 Badger 1,000 Otter 5,000 Humps and tongues of bison and deer. 6,000 Whale oil, casks 50 Castoreum, kilograms 700 Fish glue, kilograms 3,000 Down, kilograms 600 Seal tusks _. ._ 1,000 It is unnecessary to mention other less important articles. In this enumeration beaver and otter skins constitute a very considerable value. IMPORTS The articles imported from England by the Company, generally of inferior quality, consist principally of coarse cloths, wearing apparel, ordinary fabrics of various kinds, calico, crockery, glassware, household utensils, common cutlery, copper ornaments for the Indians, car- penters' and joiners' tools. Let us add that if the Com- pany was wrong in selling firearms and powder to the Indians, it has, at least up to the present, avoided spread- ing among them the use of spiritous liquors. 11 See MacCuIloch's Dictionary of Commerce; and Silliman's Journal: On the fur trade.— V . 25, p. 34. Importations by the Hudson's Bay Company, London, 1843, 1844. —de Mofras.