NARRATIVE. 67 



skull, with two shoulder-blades and some vertebrre, stuck in the 

 crotch of a tree. The jaws were very neatly bound together with 

 wattap, and the bones painted with broad stripes of black and ver- 

 million. Inside of the skull was some tobacco, plugged in with birch 

 bark. This is said to be a common token of an Indian grave, mark- 

 ing the dead as a brave hunter. On the bank above were remains 

 of an Indian lodge. 



July 10i7i. Very cool this morning. The rocks on our course 

 uniformly sloping south-west to the water, in consequence, the Profes- 

 sor said, of glacial action. He explained that in order to form satis- 

 factorv evidence of the action of ice, it was necessary that the slopes 

 and the- rounding and scratching of the surface should have a direc- 

 tion different from the stratification of the rock. 



We passed this morning several mining " locations," indicated by 

 poles set up on the rocks. At " Les Ecrits " were rude pictures of 

 canoes, caribou, horses, snakes, &c., cut out of the black lichens, on 

 a perpendicular face of rock. We stopped to lunch at a rocky point 

 forming a shelf nearly level with the water, which was thirty 

 feet deep alongside. To this the canoes were moored by a moun- 

 tain-ash sapling at head and stem, the small end tied to the 

 canoe, and the large end loaded with large stones. One of the men 

 shot a spruce partridge, (JTetrao canadensis^) the first we had seen, 

 though they are said to be abundant here. 



I climbed up the point, and on the top entered a thic growth of 

 shrubs, Labrador tea, and various species of Vaccinium. The whole 

 surface of the ground was covered with rich green moss (SpJiagnwii) , 

 spreading over the loose rocks a uniform velvet carpet, into which 

 I several times sunk to my middle. Larches began to appear. The 

 woods much like those of northern New England, except the prom- 

 inence of the lichens and mosses here, and the smaller size of the 

 trees. Contrary to my expectation, and to what had been told me of 

 the country, the forests are not remarkably dense, and there is rare'ly 

 any difficulty in penetrating, except in the cedar swamps. The 

 ground is generally rough, since it is, in fact, the broken slope of the 

 lake shore. We never penetrated far into the interior, which is said 

 to be in general thinly wooded. The most striking feature of these 

 woods is their stillness and loneliness, though as to this the season must 



