78 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



running-noose is stretched ; the animal in jumping through gets caught 

 by the neck. It is said that they can hardly be made to leave the 

 path, and they are thus very easily caught. The Indians rely much 

 upon them for support, particularly in winter. 



On the outside of the island were rough beaches of large stones, 

 and rocky points against which the waves were beating furiously. 



This evening as we were arranging the musquito-bar in our tent 

 (a nice job and one requiring abundance of light) , our candle proved 

 to be missing, and we supplied its place by piling on the fire a large 

 quantity of usnea, which streamed from all the trees. This is 

 not an unimportant article in the economy of these regions. There is 

 no better material for the packing of specimens ; it makes capital bed- 

 ding, and it is so inflammable that a tree covered with it makes the 

 best possible beacon or signal-torch. The Indian women use this as 

 well as moss for stuffing the bottom of their portable cradles. 



The wind fell in the course of the night, and there was rain before 

 morning. 



July llth. Cloudy and warm. Made a traverse at sunrise of 

 three or four miles, and then began again to thread our way through 

 endless woody islands of greenstone, often showing vertical sides. 

 The main shore was now several miles distant and constantly reced- 

 ing in high domed summits. St. Ignace, high in front, black to the 

 top with spruce forests ; and a dim, majestic outline in the far distance, 

 seeming only to divide one part of the sky from the other, our voya- 

 geurs declared to be Thunder Cape, seventy or eighty miles off. The 

 ends of all distant points were turned up by the effects of the mirage, 

 a very common phenomenon here, owing to the contrast in tempera- 

 tures between the air and the water. 



We ran into a narrow bay on the east end of St. Ignace, the bot- 

 tom of which approached a peak marked on Bayfield's chart as thir- 

 teen hundred feet above the lake. This bay is a quiet little nook, 

 hedged around with larches and other trees, over whose tops appeared 

 the peak. A small clearing had been made here, it being a mining 

 " location," and on a board fixed to one of the trees was an inscrip- 

 tion signifying that the spot had been " taken possession of by the 

 Montreal Mining Company, June 5, 1846." They had even gone 

 so far as to put up a log-house, yet standing in tolerable repair, 



