﻿142 POSTAGES. July, 



divides the current into two branches, which eddy 

 with great force into the niches and recesses of the 

 stony walls. Huge angular blocks obstruct the 

 water-course, and drift trees, entangled among them, 

 partially denuded of their branches, and wholly of 

 their bark, point in all directions. The over- 

 hanging woods almost seclude this gloomy ravine 

 from the sun ; and it presents such an aspect of 

 wildness and ruin as rarely occurs even in this 

 country. In one part of the portage road a bed 

 of gneiss is flanked on each side by masses of 

 granite. A labyrinth of passages among granite 

 rocks exists below the portage, many of them en- 

 tirely choked up with drift timber. In passing 

 rapidly through one of them we grazed a point 

 composed of a crumbling red and grey porphyritic 

 rock, perhaps an amygdaloid ; many cubical and 

 irregularly angular fragments had fallen from it. 



At the Island Portage, which immediately fol- 

 lowed, the cargo is carried only in the ascent of 

 the river. Our boats descended the fall with their 

 entire load. We next crossed the Raft Portage 

 (^Portage d' Emharras)^ which occupied us three 

 hours. At the Little Rock Portage, which follows, 

 the rock is composed of felspar, quartz, and chlorite, 

 being the protogine of Jurine. It differs from the 

 slaty rock observed near the Rein-deer Islands, in 

 not being stratified. At the Burnt Portage, the 



