Читать книгу Arctic Searching Expedition (Sir John Richardson) - comprehensive & illustrated - (Literary Thoughts Edition) - Sir John Richardson - Страница 5

PINE ISLAND LAKE.—SILURIAN STRATA.—STURGEON RIVER.—PROGRESS OF SPRING.—BEAVER LAKE.—ISLE À LA CROSSE BRIGADE.—RIDGE RIVER.—NATIVE SCHOOLMASTER AND HIS FAMILY.—TWO KINDS OF STURGEON.—NATIVE MEDICINES.—BALD EAGLES.—PELICANS.—BLACK-BELLIED AND CAYENNE TERNS.—CRANES.—FROG PORTAGE.—MISSINIPI OR CHURCHILL RIVER.—ITS LAKE-LIKE CHARACTER.—POISONOUS PLANTS AND NATIVE MEDICINES.—ATHABASCA BRIGADE.—SAND-FLY LAKE.—THE COUNTRY CHANGES ITS ASPECT.—BULL-DOG FLY.—ISLE À LA CROSSE LAKE.—ITS ALTITUDE ABOVE THE SEA.—LENGTH OF THE MISSINIPI.—ISLE À LA CROSSE FORT.—ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION.—DEEP RIVER.—CANADA LYNX.—BUFFALO LAKE.—METHY RIVER AND LAKE.—MURRAIN AMONG THE HORSES.—BURBOT OR LA LOCHE.—A MINK.—METHY PORTAGE.—JOIN MR. BELL AND HIS PARTY.

We left Cumberland House at 4 a.m., on the 14th of June, but had not passed above three miles through Pine Island Lake, before we were compelled to seek shelter on a small island by a violent thunder storm, bringing with it torrents of rain. The rain moderating after a few hours, we resumed our voyage; but the high wind continuing and raising the waves, our progress was slow, and the day's voyage did not exceed twenty-two miles. In the part of the lake where we encamped the limestone (silurian) rises, in successive outcrops, to the height of thirty feet above the water, the strike of the beds being about south-west by west, and north-east by east, or at right angles to the general line of direction of the gneiss and granite formation, which lies to the eastward. Many boulders of granite and trap rocks are scattered over the surface of the ground, far beyond the reach of any modern means of transport.

Thunder and heavy rain detained us in our encampment the whole of the following day; but some improvement in the weather taking place at midnight, we embarked, and at one in the morning of the 16th entered Sturgeon River, named by the voyagers, on account of its many bad rapids, "La Rivière Maligne." We made two portages, and an hour after noon reached Beaver Lake. The entire bed of the river consists of limestone, sometimes lying in nearly horizontal layers more or less fissured; in other places broken up into large loose slabs, tilted up and riding on each other. Boulders of granite occur in various parts of the river, some of them of considerable magnitude, and rising high out of the water. In the lower part of the river the banks are sandy, a considerable deposit of dry light soil overlies the limestone, and vegetation is early and vigorous.

When we left Lake Superior, in the middle of May, the deciduous trees gave little promise of life; and, in ascending the Kamenistikwoya, we were glad to let the eye dwell upon the groves of aspens which skirt the streams in that undulating and rocky district, and which, when well massed, gave a pleasing variety to the wintry aspect of the landscape,—the silvery hue of their leafless branches and young stems contrasting well with the sombre green of the spruce fir, which forms the bulk of the forest. On the 27th of May, while ascending Church Reach of Rainy River, we had been cheered by the lovely yellowish hue of the aspens just unfolding their young leaves; but the ice, lingering on Lake Winipeg, when we crossed it, had kept down the temperature, spring had not yet assumed its sway, and the trees were leafless. Now, the season seemed to be striding onwards rapidly, and the tender foliage was trembling on all sides in the bright sunshine. It was in a patch of burnt woods in this vicinity that, in the year 1820, I discovered the beautiful Eutoca Franklinii, now so common an ornament of our gardens.

Constantly, since the 1st of June, the song of the Fringilla leucophrys has been heard day and night, and so loudly, in the stillness of the latter season, as to deprive us at first of rest. It whistles the first bar of "Oh dear, what can the matter be!" in a clear tone, as if played on a piccolo fife; and, though the distinctness of the notes rendered them at first very pleasing, yet, as they haunted us up to the Arctic circle, and were loudest at midnight, we came to wish occasionally that the cheerful little songster would time his serenade better. It is a curious illustration of the indifference of the native population to almost every animal that does not yield food or fur, or otherwise contribute to their comfort or discomfort, that none of the Iroquois or Chippeways of our company knew the bird by sight, and they all declared boldly that no one ever saw it. We were, however, enabled, after a little trouble, to identify the songster, his song, and breeding-place. The nest is framed of grass, and placed on the ground under shelter of some small inequality; the eggs, five in number, are greyish- or purplish-white, thickly spotted with brown; and the male hides himself in a neighbouring bush while he serenades his mate.

At the outlet of Beaver Lake, and at several succeeding points on both sides of the canoe-route, the thin slaty limestone forms cliffs, thirty or forty feet high; but about the middle of the lake, there is a small island of greenstone. Beyond this we again touched upon the granite rocks which we had left at the north-east corner of Lake Winipeg, bearing from this place about east 82° south.

At the entrance of Ridge River we met Mr. M'Kenzie, Jun., in charge of a brigade of boats, carrying out the furs of the Isle à la Crosse district, and were glad to obtain from him tidings of Mr. Bell, who was advancing prosperously, though he had been stopped for three days by ice, on the lake which we had just crossed. The Missinipi, or Churchill River, Mr. M'Kenzie told us, did not open till the 6th of the present month, though in common years it seldom continues frozen beyond the 1st.

Soon after parting with this gentleman, we met the schoolmaster of Lac La Ronge district, who, with his wife and four children, were on their way to pass the summer with the Rev. Mr. Hunter, episcopal clergyman at the Pas. Both husband and wife are half-breeds, and both are lively, active, and intelligent. The family party were travelling in a small canoe, which the husband paddled on the water, and carried over the portages with their light luggage. For their subsistence, they depended on such fish and wild-fowl as they could kill on the route; and the lady was very grateful for a small supply of tea, sugar, and flour which we gave her. The young ones bore the assaults of the moschetoes with a stoical indifference, as an inevitable evil, that had belonged to every summer of their lives, and from which no part of the world, as far as they knew, was exempt. At the Ridge Portage, where we encamped for the night, the rock is gneiss, resembling mica-slate, owing to the quantity of mica that enters into its composition.

On the 17th, we came early to a long and strong rapid, bearing the same appellation with the preceding portage, and which is said to be the highest point to which sturgeon ascend in this river; and it is most probably the northern limit of the range of that fish, on the east side of the Rocky Mountains. It is situated in about 54½° degrees of north latitude. We noticed two species of this fish in the Saskatchewan River system. One of these is described in the Fauna Boreali-Americana under the name of Accipenser rupertianus, and has a tapering acute snout. It seldom exceeds ten or fifteen pounds in weight. The other is the Namèyu of the Crees, and has not been hitherto described. It very commonly weighs ninety pounds, and attains the weight of one hundred and thirty. Its snout is short and blunt, being only one third of the length of the entire head; its nasal barbels are short, its shields small and remote, and the ventral rows are absent. Its caudal is less oblique than that of the smaller kind, the upper lobe being proportionally shorter. This species ascends the Winipeg River as high as the outlet of Rainy Lake: and the smaller kind is occasionally, though rarely, taken also in that locality, but, in general, it seems to be unable to surmount the cascade at the outlet of the Lake of the Woods. The rocks here are granite, and a mountain-green chlorite slate, similar to that which occurs so abundantly on the north side of the Lake Superior basin; the latter, under the action of the weather, forms a tenacious clayey soil. A hornblende-slate occupies the bed of the river, and rises, on each bank, into rounded knolls and low cliffs. The inequalities of the country here, as well as its vegetation, are very similar to that on the Kamenistikwoya, where the same formation exists.

The woods, being now in full but still tender foliage, were beautiful. The graceful birch, in particular, attracted attention by its white stem, light green spray, and pendent, golden catkins. Willows of a darker foliage lined the river bank; and the background was covered with dark green pines, intermixed with patches of lively aspen, and here and there a tapering larch, gay with its minute tufts of crimson flowers, and young pale green leaves. The balsam poplar, with a silvery foliage though an ungainly stem, and the dank elder, disputed the strand at intervals with the willows; among which the purple twigs of the dog-wood contributed effectively to add variety and harmony to the colours of spring.

The Actæa alba grows abundantly here; it is called by the Canadians le racine d'ours, and by the Crees, musqua-mitsu-in (bears' food). A decoction of its roots and of the tops of the spruce fir is used as a drink in stomachic complaints. The Acorus calamus is another of the indigenous plants that enter into the native pharmacopœia, and is used as a remedy in colic. About the size of a small pea of the root, dried before the fire or in the sun, is a dose for an adult, and the pain is said to be removed soon after it is masticated and swallowed. When administered to children, the root is rasped, and the filings swallowed in a glass of water, or of weak tea with sugar. A drop of the juice of the recent root is dropped into inflamed eyes, and the remedy is said to be an effectual though a painful one. I have never seen it tried. The Cree name of this plant is watchŭskè mitsu-in, or "that which the musk-rat eats."

At breakfast-time we crossed the Carp Portage, where there is a shelving cascade over granite rocks. The grey sucking carp (Catastomus hudsonius) was busy spawning in the eddies, and our voyagers killed several with poles. Two miles above the portage there are some steeply rounded sandy knolls clothed with spruce trees, being the second or high bank of the river, which is elevated above all floods of the present epoch. In some places granite rocks show through sand, heaped round their base. The frequent occurrence of accumulations of sand in this granite and gneiss district, near the water-sheds of contiguous river systems, has been already noticed. In the course of the forenoon we passed the Birch lightening-place (Demi-charge du bouleau), where a slaty sienite or greenstone occurs, the beds being inclined to the east-north-east at an angle of 45°; and an hour afterwards we crossed the Birch Portage, five hundred and forty paces long. The rocks there are porphyritic granite, portions of which are in thin beds, and are therefore to be entitled gneiss.

The river has the character peculiar to the district, that is, it is formed of branching lake-like expansions without perceptible current, connected by falls or rapids occasioning portages, or by narrow straits through which there flows a strong stream. At four in the afternoon we crossed the Island Portage, where the rock is a fine-grained laminated granite or gneiss, containing nodules or crystals of quartz, which do not decay so fast as the rest of the stone, and consequently project from its surface: the layers are contorted. In 1825, which was a season of flood, this islet was under water, and our canoes ascended among the bushes.

Two hours later we passed the Pine Portage (Portage des Epinettes), and entered Half-Moon Lake (Lac Mi-rond). At this portage the rocks are granite, greenstone, and black basalt, or hornblende-rock, containing a few scales of mica, and a very few garnets. The length of the portage is two hundred yards. At our encampment on a small island in Half-Moon Lake the gneiss lay in vertical layers, having a north and south strike. A few garnets were scattered through the stone. This piece of water, and Pelican and Woody Lakes, which adjoin it, are full of fish, and they are consequently haunted by large bodies of pelicans, and several pairs of white-headed eagles (Haliæëtus albicilla). This fishing eagle abounds in the watery districts of Rupert's Land; and a nest may be looked for within every twenty or thirty miles. Each pair of birds seems to appropriate a certain range of country on which they suffer no intruders of their own species to encroach; but the nest of the osprey is often placed at no great distance from that of the eagle, which has no disinclination to avail itself of the greater activity of the smaller bird, though of itself it is by no means a bad fisher. The eagle may be known from afar, as it sits in a peculiarly erect position, motionless, on the dead top of a lofty fir, overhanging some rapid abounding in fish. Not unfrequently a raven looks quietly on from a neighbouring tree, hoping that some crumb may escape from the claws of the tyrant of the waters. Some of our voyagers had the curiosity to visit an eagle's nest, which was built, on the cleft summit of a balsam poplar, of sticks, many of them as thick as a man's wrist. It contained two young birds, well fledged, with a good store of fish, in a very odoriferous condition. While the men were climbing the tree the female parent hovered close round, and threatened an attack on the invaders; but the male, who is of much smaller size, kept aloof, making circles high in the air. The heads and tails of both were white.

The pelican, as it assembles in flocks, and is very voracious, destroys still larger quantities of fish than the eagle. It is the Pelicanus trachyrhynchus of systematic ornithologists, and ranges as far north as Great Slave Lake, in latitude 60°-61° N. These birds generally choose a rapid for the scene of their exploits, and, commencing at the upper end, suffer themselves to float down with the current, fishing as they go with great success, particularly in the eddies. When satiated, and with full pouches, they stand on a rock or boulder which rises out of the water, and air themselves, keeping their half-bent wings raised from their sides, after the manner of vultures and other gross feeders. Their pouches are frequently so crammed with fish that they cannot rise into the air until they have relieved themselves from the load, and on the unexpected approach of a canoe, they stoop down, and, drawing the bill between their legs, turn out the fish. They seem to be unable to accomplish this feat when swimming, so that then they are easily overtaken, and may be caught alive, or killed with the blow of a paddle. If they are near the beach when danger threatens, they will land to get rid of the fish more quickly. They fly heavily, and generally low, in small flocks of from eight to twenty individuals, marshalled, not in the cuneiform order of wild geese, but in a line abreast, or slightly en echellon; and their snow-white plumage with black-tipped wings, combined with their great size, gives them an imposing appearance. Exceeding the fishing eagle and the swan in bulk, they are the largest birds in the country. Their eggs are deposited on rocky islets among strong rapids, where they cannot be easily approached by man or beasts of prey. The species is named from a ridge or crest which rises from the middle line of the upper mandible of the male; sometimes from its whole length, when it is generally uneven; and sometimes from a short part only, when it is semicircular and smooth-edged.

The black-bellied tern (Hydrochelidon nigra) is also abundant on these waters, and ranges northwards to the upper part of the Mackenzie. And the Cayenne tern (Sterna cayana) is common in this quarter and onwards to beyond the arctic circle; but notwithstanding Mr. Rae's expertness as a fowler, and eagerness to procure me a specimen, the extreme wariness of the bird frustrated all his endeavours until this day, when he brought one down, and gave me an opportunity of examining it, which I was glad to do, since from want of a northern specimen the bird was not noticed in the Fauna Boreali-Americana. Mr. Audubon mentions the great difficulty of shooting this bird, and he succeeded in doing so only by employing several boats to approach its haunts in different directions. Albert, our Eskimo interpreter, told me that it does not visit Hudson's Bay.

I was also indebted to Mr. Rae's gun for specimens of the brown crane (Grus canadensis). Mr. Audubon, who is so competent an authority on all questions relating to American birds, and whose recent death all lovers of natural history deplore, was of opinion, in common with many other ornithologists, that the brown crane is merely the young of the large white crane (Grus americana); but, though I concede that the young of the latter are grey, I think that the brown species is distinct; first, because it is generally of larger dimensions than the white bird, and secondly, because it breeds on the lower parts of the Mackenzie and near the Arctic coasts, where the Grus americana is unknown. As far as I could ascertain, the latter bird does not go much further north than Great Slave Lake. At Fort aux Liards, on the River of the Mountains, large flocks of cranes pass continually to the westward, from the 17th to the 20th of September; the grey and white birds being in different bands, and the former of smaller size, like young birds. Very rarely during the summer a flock of white cranes passes over Fort Simpson in latitude 62° N. The brown cranes, on the other hand, which frequent the banks of the Mackenzie from Fort Norman, in latitude 65° N. down to the sea-coast, are generally in pairs. They are in the habit of dancing round each other very gracefully on the sand-banks of the river.

June 18th.—About three hours after embarking we came to the Pelican lightening-place (Demi-charge de chetauque), and by breakfast-time we had crossed the three portages of Woody Lake. A micaceous gneiss or mica-slate rock prevails at these portages. A family of Cree Indians, who were encamped on one of the many islands which adorn the scenery of Woody Lake, exchanged fish for tobacco, and enabled us to vary the diet of our voyagers, an indulgence which pleases them greatly; for, though they generally prefer pork or pemican to fish, they relish the latter occasionally. At five we crossed the Frog Portage, or Portage de Traitè of the Canadians, and encamped on the banks of the Missinipi or Churchill River, in the immediate vicinity of a small outpost of the Hudson's Bay Company.

No change of formation takes place in passing from the Saskatchewan River system to that of the Missinipi. The Frog Portage is low, and Churchill River, in seasons of flood, sometimes overflows it and discharges some of its superfluous waters into the Woody Lake. The general level of the country for some distance, or down to the lower end of Half-Moon Lake, varies little; but in this and in Pelican Lake there are a few conical eminences, which rise several hundred feet above the water. We did not approach them sufficiently near for examination.

Frog Portage is the most northerly point of the Saskatchewan basin, and lies in 55° 26′ N. latitude, 103° 20′ W. longitude. Below it there is a remarkable parallelism in the courses of Churchill and Saskatchewan rivers, both streams inclining to the north-east in their passage through the "intermediate primitive range," the district from whence they receive lateral supplies being at the same time very greatly narrowed. Several other considerable streams run near them, and parallel to them, but do not originate so far to the westward. In their widely spreading upper branches, and their restricted trunks, they resemble trees. As they are not separated high on the prairie slopes by an elevated water-shed, they may be considered, in reasoning upon the direction of the force which excavated their basins, as one great system, having an eastern direction and outlet, interposed between the Missouri and Mackenzie, which discharge themselves respectively into southern and northern seas.

The Churchill River is the boundary between the Chepewyans and Crees, but a few of the latter frequent its borders, resorting to Lac la Ronge and Isle à la Crosse posts, along with the Chepewyans, for their supplies.

On June the 19th, a fog detained us at our encampment to a later hour than usual; when being unwilling to lose all the morning, we went some distance in the thick weather under the guidance of the post-master, who was acquainted with every rock in the neighbourhood. As the sun rose higher the atmosphere cleared, and we ascended the Great Rapid by its southern channel, making a portage part of the way, and poling up the remainder. A recent grave with its wooden cross marked the burial-place of one of the Hudson's Bay Company's servants, who was drowned here last year. His body was thrown out a little below the rapid.

We next crossed the Rapid lightening-place, and afterwards mounted four several rapids, connected with the Barrel Portage. In the afternoon the Island Portage was made, where the river, being pent in for a short space between high, even, rocky banks, is there only five or six hundred yards wide, and has a strong current, requiring much exertion from the canoe-men in paddling round the headlands. Elsewhere, except at the rapids during this day's voyage, Churchill River has more the character of a lake. In the evening we crossed the portage of the Rapid River, one hundred and sixty paces long, which has its name from a tributary stream on which the Hudson's Bay Company have a post, that is visible from the canoe-route. Afterwards we passed the lightening-place of the Rapid River, and encamped five or six miles further on, at half-past eight o'clock.

Our Iroquois, being tired with the day's journey and longing for a fair wind to ease their arms, frequently in the course of the afternoon, scattered a little water from the blades of their paddles as an offering to La Vieille, who presides over the winds. The Canadian voyagers, ever ready to adopt the Indian superstitions, often resort to the same practice, though it is probable that they give only partial credence to it. Formerly the English shipmen, on their way to the White Sea, landed regularly in Lapland to purchase a wind from the witches residing near North Cape; and the rudeness and fears of Frobisher's companions in plucking off the boots or trowsers of a poor old Eskimo woman on the Labrador coast, to see if her feet were cloven, will be remembered by readers of arctic voyages.

Throughout the day's voyage, the primitive formation continued. In several places we observed micaceous slate, traversed by large veins of granite, and alternating with beds of the same, also gneiss in thick beds, with its layers much contorted. Below the Great Rapid there are many bluff granite rocks, and some precipices thirty or forty feet high, the higher knolls rising probably from two to three hundred feet above the water. At the Great Rapid a greenstone-slate stained with iron occurs. At the Barrel Portage, a mile or two further on, where the river makes a sharp bend, beds of chlorite-slate occupy its channel for two miles, having a north-east and south-west strike, and a southerly dip of 60° or 70°. Beds of greenstone-slate are interleaved with it. Above the Island Portage a sienite occurs which contains an imbedded mineral; and at the Rapid River Portage, mica-slate, passing into gneiss, prevails, the beds having a south-west and north-east strike. The granite veins here have a general direction nearly coincident with that of the beds, but they are waved up and down. In the vicinity of the veins the layers of slate are much contorted, following the curvatures of the veins closely. At the lightening-place of the Rapid River, there is a fine precipice of granite fifty feet high, which is traversed obliquely from top to bottom by two magnificent veins of flesh-coloured porphyry-granite. Five miles further on there are precipices of granite one hundred and fifty feet high.

The country in this neighbourhood is hilly, and a few miles back from the river the summits of the eminences appear to the eye to rise four hundred or perhaps five hundred feet above the river. The resemblance of the whole district to Winipeg River is perfect, and the general aspect of the country is much like that of the north shores of Lake Superior, though the water basin is not so deeply excavated.

An hour and a half after starting on the morning of the 20th, we crossed the Mountain Portage, one hundred paces long, where the rock is hornblende-slate. At Little Rock Portage, a short way further on, the thin slaty beds have a north-east and south-west strike. Above this, a dilatation of the river, named Otter Lake, leads to the Otter Portage of three hundred paces made over mica-slate. The beach there is strewed with fragments of a crystalline augitic greenstone, showing that that rock is not far distant.

From a party of Chepewyans who were encamped on the Otter Lake, we procured a quantity of a small white root, about the thickness of a goose quill, which had an agreeable nutty flavour. I ascertained that it was the root of the Sium lineare. The poisonous roots of Cicuta virosa, maculata, and bulbifera, are often mistaken for the edible one, and have proved fatal to several labourers in the Company's service. The natives distinguish the proper kind by the last year's stem, which has the rays of its umbel ribbed or angled, while the Cicutæ have round and smooth flower-stalks. When the plant has put out its leaves, by which it is most easily identified, the roots lose their crispness and become woody. The edible root is named ūskotask by the Crees, and queue de rat by the Canadians. The poisonous kinds are called manito-skatask, and by the voyagers carrotte de Moreau, after a man who died from eating them.

The Heuchera Richardsonii, which abounds on the rocks of this river, is one of the native medicines, its astringent root being chewed and applied as a vulnerary to wounds and sores. Its Cree name is pichē quaow-utchēpi. The leaves of the Ledum palustre are also chewed and applied to burns, which are said to heal rapidly under its influence. The cake of chewed leaves is left adhering to the sore until it falls off.

In the course of the forenoon we ascended four rapids, occasioning short portages, then the Great Devil's Portage, of fourteen hundred paces; and in the afternoon several other rapids were passed, among which were the Steep Bank, Little Rock, and Trout portages. At the Steep Bank Portage (Portage des Ecores), which is one hundred and sixty paces long, gneiss and mica-slate occur interleaved irregularly with each other, and intersected in every direction by reticulating quartz veins; the prevailing rock in the neighbourhood being gneiss, and the hills low and barren.

June 21st.—Soon after starting we crossed the Thicket Portage (Portage des Haliers) of three hundred and sixty paces, and entered Black-bear Islands Lake, a very irregular piece of water, intersected by long promontories and clusters of islands. After four hours' paddling therein we came to a rapid, considered by the guide as the middle of the lake; in three hours more we came to another strong rapid, and after another three hours to the Broken-Canoe Portage, which is at the upper end of this dilatation of the river. Granite is the prevailing rock in the lake, and one of the small islands consists of large balls of that stone, piled on each other like cannon shot in an arsenal. They might be taken for boulders were they not heaped up in a conical form and all of one kind of stone; and they have obviously received their present form by the softer parts of the rock having crumbled and fallen away. At Thicket Portage and the lower end of the lake, the granite is associated with greenstone slate; and at Broken-Canoe Portage, above the lake, a laminated stone exists, whose vertical layers are about an inch thick, and have a north and south strike, being parallel to the direction of the ridges of the rock. This stone is composed of flesh-coloured quartz, with thin layers of duck-green chlorite, and no felspar. It ought perhaps to be considered as a variety of gneiss.

Later in the afternoon we came to the Birch and Pin Portages, on the last of which we encamped. The granite rocks here are covered by a high bank of sand and gravel, filled with boulders.

June 22d.—Embarking early, we passed through Sand-fly Lake, and afterwards Serpent Lake, in which we met the Athabasca brigade of boats, under charge of Chief Trader Armitinger. This gentleman informed us that he met Mr. Bell with our boats on the 19th, on which day they would arrive at Isle à la Crosse. The aspect of the country changes suddenly on entering these lakes. The rising grounds have a more even outline, and one long low range rises over another, as the country recedes from the borders of the water, where it is generally low and swampy. The trees near the water are almost exclusively birch and balsam-poplar, or aspen; the spruce firs occupying the distant elevations, which are generally long round-backed hills, with a few short conical bluffs. Serpent Lake is named from the occurrence on its shores of a small snake. I was not able to learn that this or any other snake had been detected further to the north. Having passed a high sand-bank on the north side of Serpent Lake, six miles further on, we entered the Snake River, within the mouth of which there is a bank of loam, sand, and rolled stones, thirty-five feet high. The bed of the stream is lined with these stones, and its width is about equal to that of Rainy River. The rocky points, as seen from the canoe, appeared to be of granite. All the boulders that I examined were of a dull brownish-red, striped or laminated granite, which, on a cursory inspection, might be mistaken for sandstone. Boulders of the same kind occur at the Snake Rapid, where they are intermixed with a few pieces of hornblende rock.

June 23rd.—The moschetoes were exceedingly numerous and troublesome during the night and this morning. Our route lay through Sandy Lake and Grassy River, where the country retains the same general aspect that it has on Sand-fly and Serpent Lakes, and where the prevailing rock is a brownish-red, fine-grained sienite, resembling a sandstone. The same rock abounds in Knee Lake, where, however, we saw, for the first time since leaving the south end of Lake Winipeg, fragments of white quartzose sandstone; but did not find the stone in situ. The sienite, when traced, is found to pass into hornblendic granite, by the addition of scales of mica to some parts of the same beds. The high banks of Knee Rapid consist of sandy loam crammed with boulders.

The Tabanus, named by the voyagers "Bull-dog," has been common for two days. The current notion is, that this fly cuts a piece of flesh from his victim, and at first sight there seems to be truth in the opinion. The fly alights on the hands or face so gently that if not seen he is scarcely felt until he makes his wound, which produces a stinging sensation as if the skin had been touched by a live coal. The hand is quickly raised towards the spot, and the insect flies off. A drop of blood, oozing from the puncture, gives it the appearance of a gaping wound, and the fly is supposed to have carried off a morsel of flesh. In fact, the Tabanus inserts a five-bladed lancet, makes a perforation like a leech-bite, and, introducing his flexible proboscis, proceeds to suck the blood. He is, however, seldom suffered to remain at his repast; unless, as in our case, he be allowed to do so, that his mode of proceeding may be inspected. These Tabani are troublesome only towards noon and in a bright sun, when the heat beats down the moschetoes.

In the afternoon we passed through Primeau's Lake, having previously ascended three strong and bad rapids. At the middle turn of the lake a moderately high, long, and nearly level-topped hill closes the transverse vista. The channel between the eastern and western portions of the lake winds among extensive sandy flats, covered with bents, and in some places there was a rich crop of grass not in flower, but seemingly a Poa. In the evening we encamped at the "Portage of the Exhausted," on the river between Isle à la Crosse and Primeau Lakes. The rock here, and on the two lakes below it, is the brownish-red slaty sienite already mentioned: it has much resemblance to a rock on Lakes Huron and Superior, which seemed there to be associated with a conglomerate. The brownish colour belongs to the felspar; a vitreous quartz also enters into its composition, and a little hornblende. It is rather easily frangible, and has a flat, somewhat slaty, fracture.

Two hours after embarking on the 24th we passed the Angle Rapid (Rapide de l'Equerre), and subsequently the Noisy (Rapide Sonante), and Saginaw Rapids, and entered the small Saginaw Lake, which we crossed in half an hour. At various points we had cursory glances, in passing, of granite forming low rocks. The Crooked Rapid, a mile and a half long, conducted us to Isle à la Crosse Lake. In traversing twenty-three geographical miles of this lake, we disturbed many bands of pelicans, which were swimming on the water, or seated on rocky shoals, in flocks numbering forty or fifty birds. On the shores there are fragments of a white quartzose sandstone, but I noticed no limestone. The country consists of gravelly plains, having a coarse sandy soil and numerous imbedded boulder stones. Shoals formed by accumulations of boulders are common in the lake, and in various places close pavements of these stones are surmounted by sandy cliffs twenty or thirty feet high. The bulk of the boulders belongs to the brownish glassy sienite mentioned in a preceding page.

The funnel-shaped arm named Deep River (La Rivière Creuse) meets the northern point of the lake at an acute angle, enclosing between it and Clear Lake a triangular peninsula. Beaver River, the principal feeder of the lake, flows from Green Lake, which lies directly to the southward, near the valley of the Saskatchewan in the 54th parallel of latitude. The winter path from Isle à la Crosse to Carlton House ascends this river to its great bend, whence it leads to the Saskatchewan plains, through an undulating country but without any marked acclivity. I consider it probable, therefore, that Isle à la Crosse Lake and Carlton House do not differ more than two hundred feet from each other in their height above the sea. The altitude of the latter I have judged to be about eleven hundred feet; and Captain Lefroy, from his experiments with the boiling-water thermometer, assigns an elevation of thirteen hundred feet to the former.

Churchill River, disregarding its flexures, has a course to the sea from Isle à la Crosse Fort of five hundred and twenty-five geographical miles, and the length of the Saskatchewan below Carlton House is six hundred and thirty miles. The general descent of the eastern slope of the continent to Hudson's Bay from these two localities may be reckoned at a little more than two feet a mile. Further to the westward, in the vicinity of Fort George, near the 110th meridian, the upper branches of the Beaver River rise from the very banks of the Saskatchewan.

On Beaver River the strata are limestone, and a line drawn from the north side of Lake Winipeg, to the south side of Isle à la Crosse Lake, runs about north 58° west, and touches upon the northern edge of the limestone in Beaver Lake. That line may, therefore, be considered as representing the general direction of the junction of the limestone with the primitive rocks in this district of the country. Judging from relative geographical position and mineralogical resemblances, the north part of Isle à la Crosse Lake belongs to a similar sandstone deposit with that which skirts the primitive rocks on Lake Superior,—a peculiar looking sienite being connected with the sandstone in both localities. From its order of occurrence the limestone of Beaver River is probably silurian. My observations were too limited and cursory to carry conviction, even to my own mind, on these points; the circumstances attending the several journeys I have made through these countries having prevented me from obtaining better evidence. In a voyage with ulterior objects through so wide an extent of territory, and with so short a travelling season, every hour is of importance, and whoever has charge of a party must show that he thinks so, otherwise his men cannot be induced to keep up their exertions for sixteen hours a day, which is the usual period of labour in summer travelling. Of this time an hour's halt is allowed for breakfast, and half an hour for dinner. We did not reach Isle à la Crosse Fort till half-past nine in the evening, and then learnt that Mr. Bell with the boats was four days in advance of us.

June 25th.—A strong gale blowing this morning detained us at the post, and the day being Sunday our voyagers went to mass at the Roman Catholic chapel, distant about a mile from the fort. This mission was established in 1846 under charge of Monsieur La Flêche, who has been very successful in gaining the confidence of the Indians, and gathering a considerable number into a village round the church. In the course of the day I received a visit from Monsieur La Flêche and his colleague Monsieur Taschè. They are both intelligent well-informed men, and devoted to the task of instructing the Indians; but the revolution in France having cut off the funds the mission obtained from that country, its progress was likely to be impeded. They spoke thankfully of the assistance and countenance they received from the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company. The character they gave the Chepewyans for honesty, docility, aptness to receive instruction, and attention to the precepts of their teachers, was one of almost unqualified praise, and formed, as they stated, a strong contrast to that of the volatile Crees. They have already taught many of their pupils here to read and write a stenographic syllabic character, first used by the late Reverend Mr. Evans, a Wesleyan missionary, formerly resident at Norway House, but which Monsieur La Flêche has adapted to the Chepewyan language. On asking this gentleman his opinion of the affinity between the Cree and Chepewyan tongues, both of which he spoke fluently, he told me that the grammatical structure of the Chepewyan was different, the words short, and the sounds dissimilar, bearing little resemblance to the soft, flowing compounds of the Cree language.

As there is generally some difficulty in making an early start from a fort, we moved in the evening to the point of the bay, that we might be ready to take advantage of the first favourable moment for proceeding on our voyage.

June 26th.—We embarked before 3 a.m., but a strong head-wind blowing, we could proceed only by creeping along-shore under shelter of the projecting points. For some days past the water has been covered with the pollen of the spruce fir, and to-day we observed that it was thickly spread with the downy seeds of a willow. The banks of Deep River, which forms the discharge of Buffalo and Clear Lakes, consist of gravel and sand containing large boulders, principally of trap and primitive rocks. The eminences rise from fifteen to forty feet above the river, and the land-streams have cut ravines into the loose soil, the whole being well covered with the ordinary trees of the country. This low land extends to Primeau Lake on the one side, and Buffalo Lake on the other. The beach, especially towards the openings of Cross and Buffalo Lakes, is strewed with fragments of quartzose sandstone, mixed with some pieces of light red freestone, and many boulders of earthy greenstone, chlorite-slate, porphyritic greenstone slate, and gneiss. Neither mica-slate nor limestone were observed among them, and no rocks in situ. Many of the bays have sandy beaches. The Deep River has little current, except where it issues from the lakes.

In the morning a Canada lynx was observed swimming across a strait, where the distance from shore to shore exceeded a mile. We gave chase, and killed it easily. This animal is often seen in the water, and apparently it travels more in the summer than any other beast of prey in this country. We put ashore to sup at seven in the evening, at a point in Buffalo Lake, where we found evidences of the boat party having slept there a night or two previously. Being desirous of overtaking them without delay, we immediately resumed our voyage, but were caught in the middle of the lake by a violent thunderstorm, accompanied by strong gusts of wind. The voyagers were alarmed, and pulled vigorously for the eastern shore, on which we landed soon after eleven. The shores of Buffalo Lake are generally low; but, on the west side, there is an eminence named Grizzle Bear Hill, which is conspicuous at a considerable distance. It probably extends in a north-west direction towards the plateau of Methy Portage and Clear-water River. The valley to the east is occupied by Methy, Buffalo, and Clear Lakes, the last of which is said to have extensive arms.

Embarking at daylight on the 27th, we crossed the remainder of the lake, being about fourteen miles, and entered the Methy River, which we found to our satisfaction higher than usual; as in so shallow a stream the navigation is very tedious in dry seasons. The watermarks on the trees skirting the river showed that the water had fallen at least five feet, since the spring floods. The moschetoes are more numerous in seasons of high water, and this year was no exception to the general rule.

At the Rapid of the Tomb (La Cimetiere) several pitch or red pines (Pinus resinosa) grow intermixed with black spruces, one of them being a good-sized tree. This is the most northerly situation in which I saw this pine, and the voyagers believe that it does not grow higher than the River Winipeg.

An Indian, who has built a house at the mouth of the river, keeps fifteen or twenty horses, which he lets to the Company's men on Methy Portage, the charge being "a skin," or four shillings, for carrying over a piece of goods or furs weighing ninety pounds. From him we received the very unpleasant intelligence, that not only had his horses died of murrain last autumn, but that all the Company's stock employed on the portage had likewise perished. This calamity foreboded a detention of seven or eight days longer on the portage than we expected, and a consequent reduction of the limited time we had calculated upon for our sea-voyage. I had used every exertion to reach the sea-coast some days before the appointed time, expecting to be able to examine Wollaston's Land this season;—this hope was now almost extinguished. Another stock of horses had been ordered from the Saskatchewan, but they were not likely to arrive till the summer was well advanced.

Methy River flows through a low, swampy country, of which a large portion is a peat moss. Some sandy banks occur here and there, and boulders are scattered over the surface, and line the bed of the stream. We encamped on the driest spot we could find, and had to sustain the unintermitting attacks of myriads of moschetoes all night.

The Methy River, Lake, and Portage, are named from the Cree designation of the Burbot (Lota maculosa) (La Loche of the Canadians), which abounds in these waters, and often supplies a poor and watery food to voyagers whose provisions are exhausted. Though the fish is less prized than any other in the country, its roe is one of the best, and, with a small addition of flour, makes a palatable and very nourishing bread.

Four hours' paddling brought us, early on the 28th, to the head of the river, and two hours more enabled us to cross to the eastern side of Methy Lake, where we were compelled to put ashore by a strong headwind. A female mink (Vison lutreola) was killed as it was crossing a bay of the lake. It had eight swollen teats, and its udder contained milk; so that probably its death ensured that of a young progeny also. The feet of this little amphibious animal are webbed for half the length of its toes. It is the Shakwèshew or Atjakashew of the Crees, the "Mink" of the fur-traders, and the Foutereau of the Canadians.

In the evening, the wind having decreased, we paddled under shelter of the western shore to the upper end of the lake, and entered the small creek which leads to the portage.

Mr. Bell was encamped at the landing-place, having arrived on the previous day, which he had spent in preparing and distributing the loads, and the party had advanced one stage of different lengths, according to the carrying powers of the individuals, which were very unequal. On visiting the men, I found two of the sappers and miners lame from the fatigue of crossing the numerous carrying-places on Churchill River, and unfit for any labour on this long portage. Several others appeared feeble; and, judging from the first day's work of the party, I could not estimate the time that would be occupied, should they receive no help in transporting the boats and stores, at less than a fortnight, which would leave us with little prospect of completing our sea-voyage this season. In the equal distribution of the baggage each man had five pieces of ninety pounds' weight each, exclusive of his own bedding and clothing, and of the boats, with their masts, sails, oars, anchors, &c., which could not be transported in fewer than two journeys of the whole party. The Canadian voyagers carry two pieces of the standard weight of ninety pounds at each trip on long portages such as this, and, in shorter ones, often a greater load. Several of our Europeans carried only one piece at a time, and had, consequently, to make five trips with their share of the baggage, besides two with the boats; hence they were unable to make good the ordinary day's journey of two miles, being, at seven trips with the return, twenty-six miles of walking, fourteen of them with a load. The practised voyager, on the contrary, by carrying greater loads, can reduce the walking by one third, and some of them by fully one half.

By their agreements, our canoe-men were at liberty to return as soon as we overtook the boats; and, in that case, the additional pieces we had brought would of course be added to the baggage of the boat party; but I engaged them to assist us during the time that we were occupied on the portage, for an increase of wages of four shillings, York currency, per diem each.

June 29th.—Our canoe-men were early astir this morning, and, before breakfast-time, had carried all the cargo of the canoes to the banks of a small lake, being two thirds of the whole portage, or 16,724 paces: the entire distance from Methy Lake to Clear-water River is 24,593 paces.

By observations with the aneroid and Delcros' barometers, I ascertained that the Little Lake was elevated twenty-two feet above Methy Lake; that the highest part of the pathway between the Little Lake and the Clear-water River rises above the latter six hundred and fifty-six feet, but, above Methy Lake, only sixty-six feet. The Cockscomb, or the crest of the precipitous brow which overlooks the magnificent valley of the Clear-water, is twenty-two feet lower than the summit of the path, or six hundred and thirty-four feet above the last-named river. The portage-road is, in fact, nearly level; the inequalities being of small account as far as to the sudden descent of the Cockscomb. In the sandy soil there are many fragments of sandstone, a few of limestone, and scattered boulders of granites, sienites, and greenstones. The deposit of sand is about six hundred feet deep, and most probably encloses solid beds of sandstone. It is based on a (Devonian?) limestone, which lines the whole bed of the Clear-water River, till its junction with the Elk River, as I shall hereafter mention.

Captain Lefroy assigns fifteen hundred feet as the elevation of the surface of Methy Lake above the sea, and, from various estimates of the rate of descent of Mackenzie River and its feeders, I am inclined, independent of his calculations, to consider the Clear-water River at Methy Portage to be nine hundred feet above the sea, which accords well with his conclusions; since the difference of level between Methy Lake and Clear-water River being five hundred and ninety feet by my barometrical observations, the latter would be nine hundred and fifty feet above the sea by his data.

On the 3d of July, the whole of the baggage and the boats were brought to the banks of the Little Lake; and on the 6th, every thing having been carried over to Clear-water River on the preceding evening, we descended from the Cockscomb, where we had remained encamped for two days, that we might avoid the moschetoes which infested the low grounds. While the boats were loading, we took leave of our canoe-men, who returned to Canada, and at half-past eight a.m. we pushed off.

The portage occupied nine days from the time of Mr. Bell's arrival; but, with the assistance of horses, we could have passed it easily in three, and saved nearly a week of summer weather, most important for our future operations, besides husbanding the strength of the men. The transport of the four boats, being made on the men's shoulders, employed two days and a half of our time.