1885.] THE FORESTS OF NORTHERN WISCONSIN. 213 



river was straight, and we could look up it for at least half a mile. 

 The banks for this distance were lined with the dark-green foliage 

 of the hemlock to the very edge of the water, or rather to that of 

 the white foam, for so rapid was its de.scent that it might have been 

 called a river of foam. 



The wliite waters, the gloomy foliage, auu the vast expanse of the 

 great lake visible from where we stood, formed a picture of dreary 

 grandeur not soon to be forgotten. As we wended our way back to 

 our tent, we again examined the mouth of the Montreal, and found it 

 so confined and narrow, that we came to the conclusion that there 

 was no fit place or opportunity for erecting mills or for building 

 piers and booms to hold a sufficient quantity of logs or timber. The 

 next morning early, we took a track which led us to the head- 

 waters of the Montreal and Black rivers. On our route we crossed 

 two ranges of hills, one of these being called the Iron, the other the 

 Copper range, from the occurrence in them of the ores of these 

 metals. We did not find any quantity of white pine until we had 

 crossed these, the growth consisting very largely of sugar maple, 

 bass wood, Thuja aceroides, and hemlock. 



Wlieu we did find pine, liowever, the trees were large and sound. 

 Indeed, on the head of the Montreal, we crossed a body of pines 

 growing among hardwoods, which were large enough to make timber 

 which would square twenty inches. The chief growth on the 

 Montreal and Black rivers consisted, not of pine, but of the woods 

 which I have mentioned. The hemlock spruce in many places were 

 very abundant, growing as this wood usually does in clusters or 

 bunches. In many cases the bark was coarse and rough, and the 

 wood consequently inferior in quality. Thuja occidentalis was also 

 abundant, forming in many cases thickets in the swamps which were 

 very hard to penetrate. The soil of this part of "Wisconsin is in 

 general poor and stony. Deer were abundant, as were the wolves, 

 whose voices we frequently heard at night. 



After remaining in the woods until our provisions were nearly 

 exhausted, we followed a track whicli led along and over the Pennokee 

 iron range ibr a distance of about thirty miles, when we reached a 

 station on the Wisconsin Central Railway. This last-named distance 

 was almost altogether through a growth of maple and bass wood, 

 occasionally interspersed with hemlock spruces. 



Now and then we came in contact with white pines which, as 

 before mentioned, if they were scarce in numbers, were excellent in 

 quality. So far as we could learn, there was a good deal of low, 

 swampy, and inferior land in the State of Wisconsin, on the section 

 between the rivers running into the ^Mississippi and those entering 

 into Lake Superior. 



