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Rh just spoken, and of which the commandant has written in his letter. It appears to me that Heaven has revenged you for your losses, since it has given you the flesh of a young Fox to eat.

"You have done well to listen to the words of your commandant to keep quiet and respect the words of your Father. There is coming from France a new Father, who will not fail to inform you, as soon as he shall be able to take measures and stop the bad affair which the Foxes wish to cause in future."

In the year 1730, an Indian brought to the French post, at Chagouamigon Bay, a nugget of copper, which led to the supposition that there was a mine of this metal in the vicinity. On the 18th of October, 1731, the Canadian authorities wrote to the French government that they had received no satisfactory report of the situation or quality of the mine alleged to be in the neighborhood of the "Bay of Chagouamigon," and that the Indians were very superstitious about such discoveries, and were unwilling to reveal.

The officer in command at Chagouamigon at this time was Sieur La Ronde Denis, who had received a concession to work copper mines. He and his son Ensign Denis de la Ronde were zealous in this business, and the latter explored one of the islands. A dispatch of the day mentions that La Ronde "had been ordered with his son to build at the river St. Anne a house of logs two hundred feet long, with a fort and curtain, which he assures us he has executed. He has had other expenses on account of the mines, such as voyages and presents for the Indians. He has constructed at his own expense a bark of forty tons on Lake Superior, and was obliged to transport in canoes,