pread, as the Algonquin itself.

The Chipewyan of Lake Athabasca speaks the same tongue as the Apache
of Arizona, the Navajo of Sonora, the Hoopa of Oregon, and the
Sarcee of Alberta. The word Apache has the same root-meaning as
the word Dene though that fierce race was also called locally the
Shisindins, namely, "The Forest People," doubtless from its original
habitat in this region.

Owing to the agglutinative character of the aboriginal languages,
numbering over four hundred, some philologists are inclined to
attribute them all to a common origin, the Basque tongue being
one of the two or three in Europe which have a like peculiarity.
In the languages of the American Indians one syllable is piled
upon another, each with a distinct root-significance, so that
a single word will often contain the meaning of an ordinary
English sentence. This polysynthetic character undoubtedly
does point to a common origin, just as the Indo-European tongues
trace back to Sanskrit. But whether this is indicative of the
ancient unity of the American races, whose languages differed
in so many other respects, and whose characteristics were so
divergent, is another question.

One interesting impression, begot of our environment, was that we
were now emphatically in what might be called "Mackenzie's country."
In his "General History of the Fur-Trade," published in London in
1801, Sir Alexander tells us that, after spending five years in Mr.
Gregory's office in Montreal, he went to Detroit to trade, and
afterwards, in 1785, to the Grand Portage (Fort William).

The first traders, he tells us, had penetrated to the Athabasca,
via Methy Portage, as early as 1791, and in 1783-4 the merchants
of Lower Canada united under the name of The North-West Company,
the two Frobishers--Joseph Frobisher had traded on the Churchill
River as early as 1775 and Simon McTavish being managers. The
Company, he says, "was consolidated in July, 1787," and became
very powerful in more ways than one, employing, at the time he
wrote, over 1,400 men, including 1,120 canoemen. "It took four
years from the time the good, were ordered until the furs were
sold;" but, of course, the profits, compared with the capital
invested, were very great, until the strife deepened between
the Montrealers. and the Hudson's Bay Company, whose first
inland post was only established at Sturgeon River, Cumberland
Lake, in 1774, by the adventurous, if not over-valiant, Samuel
Hearne. Th