﻿1848. CHARACTER OF THE ROCKS. 81 



tapering acute snout. It seldom exceeds ten or 

 fifteen pounds in weight. The other is the Name- 

 yu of the Crees, and has not been hitherto de- 

 scribed. It very commonly weighs ninety pounds, 

 and attains the weight of one hundred and thirty. 

 Its snout is short and blunt, being only one third 

 of the length of the entire head ; its nasal barbels 

 are short, its shields small and remote, and the 

 ventral rows are absent. Its caudal is less oblique 

 than that of the smaller kind, the upper lobe 

 being proportionally shorter. This species ascends 

 the Winipeg River as high as the outlet of Rainy 

 Lake : and the smaller kind is occasionally, though 

 rarely, taken also in that locality, but, in general, it 

 seems to be unable to surmount the cascade at the 

 outlet of the Lake of the Woods. The rocks here are 

 granite, and a mountain-green chlorite slate, similar 

 to that which occurs so abundantly on the north side 

 of the Lake Superior basin ; the latter, under the 

 action of the weather, forms a tenacious clayey soil. 

 A hornblende-slate occupies the bed of the river, 

 and rises, on each bank, into rounded knolls and 

 low cliffs. The inequalities of the country here, as 

 well as its vegetation, are very similar to that on 

 the Kamenistikwoya, where the same formation 

 exists. 



The woods, being now in full but still tender 

 foliage, were beautiful. The graceful birch, in 



VOL. I. G 



