100 DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY 



pliment to Mr. J. Keith, the Company's agent 

 at Montreal, whose name has already been men- 

 tioned in terms of merited commendation. 



We next crossed a wide traverse towards some 

 table hills, forming part of what the Indians 

 called Rein-deer Island, the walled sides of which 

 rose far above the sloping and wooded country at 

 their base ; and here we landed, to examine more 

 closely its diversified formation. Either from 

 the grinding pressure of the immense masses of 

 ice that are forced on this exposed coast, or 

 from the continued action of breaking waves, 

 the whole line of shore, for two or three miles, is 

 composed of a kind of pudding stone ; contain- 

 ing large and small stones, all more or less glo- 

 bular, cemented by a yellowish clay, which has 

 become as hard as rock. It varies in elevation 

 from six to forty feet, and appears to run 

 into the adjacent rocks, which attain an altitude 

 of from fourteen hundred to two thousand feet, 

 with an irregularity which contrasts strongly 

 with the flowing outline of the western main, 

 now discernible to the distance of twelve or fif- 

 teen miles. Re-embarking, we made for the 

 point of an island, resorted to by the Indians for 

 a particular stone, used for the making of pipes, 

 and generally of a greenish-grey colour. On this 

 occasion it was visited for the purpose of allow- 

 ing one of them to inspect a small deposit of 



