CHAP. xv. THE LAKE COUNTRY. 235 



I counted twenty-two large lakes, besides numerous 

 small sheets of water, which evidently merged into 

 swamps, and are probably more or less connected in the 

 spring of the year. A countless number of erratics were 

 scattered in every direction, best seen, however, towards 

 the south and west in the burnt country. The hill-sides 

 appeared to be covered with them, and many were of 

 very large dimensions. Those on the bare rock wdiere we 

 stood were well water- worn, lichen-covered, and appeared 

 to consist of gneiss, to the exclusion of every other variety 

 of rock. I looked for glacial stria?, but saw none ; I 

 searched carefully for moraines, 1 but could not distinguish 

 any, unless every valley could be said to possess its own 

 moraine, an idea which the absence of glacial stria? for 

 a time dispelled. The stria? may long since have dis- 

 appeared under the singular atmospheric influences of 

 the climate of this elevated region. The entire peninsula 

 was perhaps once covered with ice as Greenland now is. 

 The erratics appeared to be uniformly distributed ; but it 

 must be observed, that in the valleys the caribou moss 

 covered them, so that their number or the manner of 

 their distribution could not be well discerned. 



Long and anxiously I looked round in every direction to 

 see if I could distinguish any signs of animal life, but with- 

 out success. No sound was audible except the sighing 

 of the wind. A marshy lake lay at the foot of the hill, 

 which we had ascended with the greatest caution on the 

 opposite side, but no waterfowl were visible or even fish 

 seen to rise. Not a bird, or butterfly, or beetle appeared 

 to inhabit this desolate wilderness. Behind us lay the 

 burnt country, built up of erratics. Yet what a history 



