COMMERCE. 231

cent”. When the reader furthermore learns that, according to the same author, two fleets of canoes carried about 20.000 beavers, while some 30.000 more were derived from other Indians (without mentioning over 9000 martens), he will form some idea of the immense profits realized at the expense of the poor Indian.

Coming to more recent years, Dr. King tells us that “three marten-skins are obtained for a coarse knife, the utmost value of which, including the expense of conveying it to those distant regions, cannot be estimated at more than sixpence, and three of these skins were sold last January 1836 in London for three guineas. With the more expensive furs, stich as the black fox, or sea-otter, the profit is more than tripled; and but a few years ago a single skin of the former species sold for fifty guineas, while the native obtained in exchange the value of two shillings’.

Modern Currency of the Fur Trade.

Originally and for quite a long time, the standard of currency between the white traders and their dusky customers was the beaver skin. All the other peltries were graded in proportion of their relative value compared to that of the beaver. Thus a silver fox may have been worth ten beaver skins, a bear five, and a muskrat a fifth of one, or less. For his silver fox the native hunter would then get in goods ten times more than a beaver would bring, half as much for a bear skin, and so forth. This standard came to be known as a Made Beaver (abbreviated M. B.), or a Skin, to the English, while the French called it a pelu.

As to the intrinsic value of that Made Beaver and its relation to the known monetary standards, this was a question left entirely to the discretion of the traders. Both varied, therefore, according to the times and the localities. In the east and far northwest, till a very late date a Made Beaver was supposed to correspond to half a dollar or two shillings*. At this rate of exchange here is the tariff obtaining at Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, as late as 1864:

Bk HO. . . « » o-oo 0 6 6 0 0 0 WOW, oF colkis o.— Gross hoie eal Gere aee. nae ae a ey A S 2.— Common Fox . Ike S a oe 00 Marten . Pee) a ee et) Otter . oi AL Seg Bi his 2.— Mink yde sane 1— Wolf Legaeees 0) Beare sare 2: epee Sines : 2.— Musk-Ox . eis Aes Boe ets 2 Wolverine OR Ss es 1.50 NEV TIXS0ES ints <n cr. Desh Yop Reman = 2% Soa 1— itisltatert acon te coo eo amen sa nOOrn Lees, about , —.18 Beaver (standard). . Zi eels acai Uae or , —.00°

1 “Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Arctic Ocean”, vol. Il, p. 53—54.

2 Cf. Petitot Monographie, p. XXVI; Autour du Gd. L. des Esclaves, p. 65; Dall, “Travels on the Yukon”, p. 104; Whymper, op. cit., p. 226; Tyrrell, op. cit., p. 63.

3 These figures are after Petitot, Autour du Gd. L. des Esclaves, p. 67.