medals was awarded to Dr. Boucherie, of which only four were conferred in all.

The mode of application is as follows:-Soon after the tree is felled, a saw-cut is made in the centre, through about nine-tenths of its section. The tree is slightly raised by a lever or wedge at its centre, and the saw-cut thereby partially opened; a piece of string is then placed round the cut, close to the outer circumference of the tree, the support is withdrawn, and the saw-cut closes on the string, thereby making a water-tight joint. An auger-hole is then bored obliquely into the saw-cut; a wooden tube is driven into the hole, the conical end of which is attached to a flexible pipe, which is in connexion with a cistern or reservoir, at an elevation of from 30 to 40 feet above the tree intended to be preserved.

When it is necessary to prepare timber in long lengths, a cap is placed at the end of the tree by screws or dogs. The most efficacious solution is composed of sulphate of copper and water, mixed in the proportion of 1 to 100. The strength is easily ascertained, by any intelligent workman, by an hydrometer;-and the cost of such a solution is so trifling, as to offer no impediment to its universal application for the purpose in view.*

It would be difficult to enumerate all the classes to be benefitted by this invention, and the uses to which it may be applied. Railway companies, ship-builders, telegraph companies, and land owners, would alike benefit by it. Post and rail fencing, field gates, wood farm buildings, frame buildings, and dwellings in general, would last many additional years. Mr. R. Stephenson, the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, in his inaugural address, adverts to the great consumption of railway sleepers by decay, and estimates it at 2,600,000 per annum, costing upwards of £500,000. Taking the resistance

* On comparing the above account of Boucherie's process with that described in the Canadian Journal (No. 6, pp. 559–561) and for which a patent was taken out in May, 1856, the two processes appear to be identical so far as the employment of hydraulic pressure is concerned, and if such is the case, this part of the patent is void.

"If at

The following is the text of the Patent Law bearing upon this point. "the trial in any such action [for infringement of Patent,] it shall be made appa"rent to the satisfaction of the Court....that the thing thus secured by Patent “was not originally discovered by the Patentee, or party claiming to be the "Inventor or Discoverer in the specification referred to in the Patent, but had "been in use, or had been described in some public work, anterior to the supposed "discovery of the Patentee......the Patent shall be declared void." 13 and 14 Vict. 79, c. 8.-(Ed. Can. Jour.)

of the proposed sleepers to decay as the only basis of the calculation, a large proportion of this sum would be saved. Assuming the duration of the sleeper to be doubled, and taking into account the mechanical causes of destruction, a saving of £300,000 per annum, would be effected to the railway interest in England alone.

From these data, the value of the invention in Europe will readily be seen, and although it has been patented in France and England, and, as it would seem, to some extent, in Canada, it is believed that the use in this Province is unfettered; 1st, because by the Statutes of Canada, no foreigner can obtain a patent monopoly in this country; and, 2nd, because, being already known and used in other countries, it cannot be patented here.

In accordance with an invitation of the Council of the Canadian Institute to communicate notices of some of the tribes of Indians amongst whom I have travelled, I selected the Chinooks, one of the tribes most remote from this part of the continent, and whose manners and customs are so much at variance with our own, as to render some notice of them, from personal observation, probably both novel and interesting. Other communications of the incidents and results of my travels among the Indians of the North West, having since appeared in the Journal, I have revised my account of the Chinooks, with a view to its appearance, along with the notices of the Walla Wallas, and others of the Aborigines of this continent in the New Series. The Flat-Head Indians are met with along the banks of the Columbia river from its mouth eastward to the Cascades, a distance of about 130 miles; they extend up the Walamett river south about 30 or 40 miles, and through the district lying between the Walamett and Fort Astoria, now called Fort George. To the north they extend along the Cowlitz river and the tract of land lying between that and Puget's Sound. About two-thirds of Vancouver's Island is also occupied by them, and they are found along the coasts of Puget's Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca. The Flat-Heads are divided into numerous tribes, each having its own peculiar locality, and differing more or less from the others in language, customs, and manners.

Of these I have selected, as the subject of the present paper, the Chinooks, a tribe inhabiting the tract of country at the mouth of the Columbia river. Residing among the Flat-Heads, I remained from the fall of 1846 to the following autumn of 1847, and had consequently ample opportunity of becoming acquainted with the peculiar habits and customs of the tribe. They are governed by a Chief called Casenov. This name has no translation: the Indians on the west side of the Rocky Mountains differing from those on the east, in having hereditary names, to which no particuliar meaning appears to be attached, and the derivation of which is in many instances forgotten. Casenov is a man of advanced age, and resides principally at Fort Vancouver, about 90 miles from the mouth of the Columbia. I made a sketch of him while staying there, and obtained the following information as to his history :-Previous to 1829 Casenov was considered a great warrior, and could lead into the field 1,000 men, but in that year the Hudson's Bay Company and emigrants from the United States introduced the plough for the first time into Oregon, and the locality, hitherto considered one of the most healthy, was almost depopulated by the fever and ague.

Chinook Point, the principal settlement of the tribe, at the mouth of the river, where King Cumcomley ruled in 1811, was nearly reduced to one-half its numbers, The Klatsup village now contains but a small remnant of its former inhabitants. Wasiackum, Catlamet, Kullowith, the settlements at the mouth of the Cowlitz, Kallemo, Kattlepootle and Walkumup are entirely extinct as villages. On Sovey's Island there were formerly four villages but now there scarcely remains a lodge. They died of this disease in such numbers that their bodies lay unburied on the river's banks, and many were to be met with floating down the stream. The Hudson's Bay Company supplied them liberally with Quinine and other medicines, but the good effects of these were almost entirely counteracted by their mode of living and obstinacy in persisting in their own peculiar mode of treatment, which consisted principally in plunging into the river without reference to the particular crisis of the disease.

From these causes the numbers of the Indians have been very much reduced, and the effective power of the tribes so greatly diminished that the influence which Casenov owed to the number of his followers has correspondingly declined; his own immediate family consisting of ten wives, four children, and eighteen slaves, being reduced in one year to one wife, one child, and two slaves. Their decrease since that time has also been fearfully accelerated by the introduction of

ardent spirits, which, in spite of prohibition and fines against selling it to Indians, they manage to obtain from their vicinity to Oregon city, where whiskey, or a poisonous compound called there blue ruin, is illicitly distilled. I have scarcely ever met with an Indian in that vicinity who would not get drunk if he could procure the means, and it is a matter of astonishment how very small a quantity suffices to intoxicate these unfortunate beings, although they always dilute it largely in order to prolong the pleasure they derive from drinking.

Casenov is a man of more than ordinary talent for an Indian, and he has maintained his great influence over his tribe chiefly by means of the superstitious dread in which they hold him. This influence was wielded with unflinching severity towards them, although he has ever proved himself the firm friend of the white man. For many years, in the early period of his life, he kept a hired assassin to remove any obnoxious individual against whom he entertained personal enmity. This bravo, whose occupation was no secret, went by the name of Casenov's Sköcoom or evil genius. He finally fell in love with one of Casenov's wives who eloped with him. Casenov vowed vengeance, but the pair for a long time eluded his search, until one day he met her in a canoe near the mouth of the Cowlitz river and shot her on the spot. After this he lived in such continual dread of the lover's vengeance that for nearly a year he never ventured to sleep, but in the midst of a body guard of forty armed warriors, until at last he succeeded in tracing his foe out, and had him assassinated by the man who had succeeded him in his old office.

The Chinooks over whom Casenov presides carry the process of flattening the head to a greater extent than any other of the FlatHead tribes. The process is as follows:-The Indian mothers all carry their infants strapped to a piece of board covered with moss or loose fibres of cedar bark, and in order to flatten the head they place a pad on the forehead of the child, on the top of which is laid a piece of smooth bark bound on by a leathern band passing through holes in the board on either side and kept tightly pressed across the front of the head. A sort of pillow of grass or cedar fibres is placed under the back of the neck to support it.

This process commences with the birth of the infant, and is continued for a period of from eight to twelve months, by which time the head has lost its natural shape and acquired that of a wedge, the front of the skull becoming flat, broad, and higher at the crown, giving it a most unnatural appearance.

It might be presumed that from the extent to which this is

carried the operation must be attended with great suffering to the infant, but I never heard the infants crying or moaning, although I have seen their eyes seemingly starting out of the sockets from the great pressure. But on the contrary, when the bandages were removed I have noticed them cry until they were replaced.

From the apparent dullness of the children whilst under the pressure I should imagine that a state of torpor or insensibility is induced, and that a return to consciousness occasioned by its removal must be naturally followed by the sense of pain.

This unnatural operation does not however seem to injure the health, the mortality amongst the Flat-Head children not being perceptibly greater than amongst other Indian tribes. Nor does it seem to injure their intellect; on the contrary, the Flat-Heads are generally considered fully as intelligent as the surrounding tribes who allow their heads to preserve their natural shape; and it is from amongst the round-heads that the Flat-Heads take their slaves. They look with contempt even upon the whites for having round-heads, the flat-head being considered as the distinguishing mark of freedom. I may here remark, that, amongst the tribes who have slaves there is always something which conspicuously marks the difference between the slave and the free, such as the Chimseyan, who wear a ring in the nose, and the Babbenes who have a large piece of wood inserted through the under lip. The Chinooks, like all other Indian tribes, pluck out the beard on its first appearance.

I would give a specimen of the barbarous language of these people, were it not impossible to represent by any combination of the letters of our alphabet the horribly harsh, gasping, spluttering sounds which proceed from their throats, apparently unguided either by the tongue or lips. It is so difficult to acquire a mastery of their language that none have been able to attain it unless those who have been born amongst them. They have, however, by their intercourse with the English and French traders succeeded in amalgamating, after a fashion, some words of each of these tongues with their own, and have formed a sort of Patois, barbarous enough certainly, but still sufficient to enable them to communicate with the traders.

This Patois I succeeded, after some short time, in acquiring, and could converse with most of the chiefs with tolerable ease. Their common salutation is Clah hoh ah yah, originating, as I believe in their having heard in the early days of the fur trade a gentleman named Clark frequently addressed by his friends, "Clark, how are you?" This salutation is now applied to every white man, their own