﻿1848. ISLE A LA CROSSE LAKE. 101 



rock oil Lakes Huron and Superior, which seemed 

 there to be associated with a conglomerate. The 

 brownish colour belongs to the felspar ; a vitreous 

 quartz also enters into its composition, and a little 

 hornblende. It is rather easily frangible, and has 

 a flat, somewhat slaty, fracture. 



Two hours after embarking on the 24th we passed 

 the Angle Rapid {Rapide de VEquerre)^ and subse- 

 quently the Xoisy (Rapide Sonante), and Sagi- 

 naw Rapids, and entered the small Saginaw Lake, 

 which we crossed in half an hour. At various 

 points we had cursory glances, in passing, of gra- 

 nite forming low rocks. The Crooked Rapid, 

 a mile and a half long, conducted us to Isle a 

 la Crosse Lake. In traversing twenty-three geo- 

 graphical miles of this lake, we disturbed many- 

 bands of pelicans, which were swimming on the 

 water, or seated on rocky shoals, in flocks number- 

 ing forty or fifty birds. On the shores there 

 are fragments of a white quartzose sandstone, but 

 I noticed no limestone. The country consists 

 of gravelly plains, having a coarse sandy soil and 

 numerous imbedded boulder stones. Shoals formed 

 by accumulations of boulders are common in the 

 lake, and in various places close pavements of these 

 stones are surmounted by sandy cliff's twenty or 

 thirty feet high. The bulk of the boulders belongs 



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