﻿80 TWO KINDS OF STURGEON. June, 



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 indif- 

 ference, 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 pre- 

 ceding 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 Moun- 

 tains. It is situated in about 54J° 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 riipertianus, and has a 



