﻿1848. OR CHURCHILL RIVER. 93 



only partial credence to It. Formerly the English 

 shipmen, on their way to the White Sea, landed 

 regularly in Lapland to purchase a wind from 

 the witches residing near Nortli Cape ; and the 

 rudeness and fears of Frobisher's companions in 

 plucking off the boots or trowsers of a poor old 

 Eskimo woman on the Labrador coast, to see if her 

 feet were cloven, will be remembered by readers of 

 arctic voyages. 



Throughout the day's voyage, the primitive for- 

 mation continued. Li several places we observed 

 micaceous slate, traversed by large veins of granite, 

 and alternating with beds of the same, also gneiss 

 in thick beds, with its layers much contorted. 

 Below the Great Rapid there are many bluff 

 granite rocks, and some precipices thirty cr forty 

 feet high, the higher knolls rising probably from 

 two to three hundred feet above the water. At 

 the Great Rapid a greenstone-slate stained with 

 iron occurs. At the Barrel Portage, a mile or tAvo 

 further on, where the river makes a sharp bend, beds 

 of chlorite-slate occupy its channel for two miles, 

 having a north-east and south-west strike, and a 

 southerly dip of 60° or 70°. Beds of greenstone- 

 slate are interleaved with it. Above the Island 

 Portage asienite occurs which contains an imbedded 

 mineral ; and at the Rapid River Portage, mica- 

 slate, passing into gneiss, prevails, the beds having 



