NARRATIVE. 51 



the correctness of the glacial theory. Its surface was a couple of 

 hundred yards in extent, sloping regularly north to the water's edge. 

 The whole was polished and scratched, except where disintegrated. 

 The scratches had two directions, the prevailing one north 10 to 30 

 west, the other north, 55 west. The scratches on the outer or lake 

 side seemed to have a rather more westerly direction than the rest. 

 Great numbers of these striae could be traced below the water's edge, 

 from which they ascended in some places at an angle of 30 with 

 the surface, showing, as the Professor remarked, that they could not 

 have been produced by a floating body. The rock is granitic, with 

 an astonishing number of veins and injections of epidotic felspar, 

 granite, and trap, often crossing each other so as to form a compli- 

 cated net-work. Wherever exposed, it was ground down to an even 

 surface. 



The day was calm and very warm. About noon we stopped at 

 Montreal River, (one of several of this name on the lake.) This 

 river, forty yards wide at the mouth, empties through a kind of 

 delta, partly overgrown with large trees. The water is deep and 

 clear, but of a rich umber color, such as we often see in the small 

 streams in New England. This is the case with all the rivers we 

 met with on the lake ; the color was there attributed to the presence 

 of pitch, an explanation the Prof, thought likely to be correct. At 

 its entrance into the lake is a broad beach, which on the south forms 

 a point somewhat jutting across the mouth. 



On the northern side, at a short distance from the water, the beach, 

 which was of small pebbles, had a slope of 30 that is, nearly as 

 steep as it could stand. We frequently met with such steep beaches, 

 often of a considerable height. Outside there is a bar which extends 

 entirely across, six feet below the surface. The stream issues from 

 the hills through a chasm sixty or eighty feet deep and a few yards 

 wide, with straight walls of rock, somewhat overhanging on one side. 

 From this gorge the river issues with great force. Higher up there 

 was a cascade some forty feet in height, falling from a dark, still 

 lakelet, and above this again a succession of rapids. This is the 

 general manner in which the streams on this side of the lake make 

 their way down from the table-land through the barrier of rock. On 

 the delta below were several of the largest red pines (P. resinosa,') 



