LAKE SUPERIOR. 43 



lashed into billows by the wind, toiling among rocks 

 or leaping over falls — but above all is it peculiar and 

 terrible in passing through broken descents ! See it 

 glide so deceitfully smooth, but with such resistless 

 power toward the rapids ; notice its tiny innocent 

 ripples and childlike murmurs at your feet ; see the 

 pretty rolling undulations. Trust yourself to its 

 seductions. Now it has you in its fearful current, 

 now it drags you along, it clasps you struggling and 

 shrieking in its fierce embrace ; it throws its white 

 arms around you, lashes itself into a fury, whirls you 

 about in its powerful eddies, sinks you dow^n in its 

 mighty whirlpools, dashes you against the rocks, 

 drags you along the jagged bottom, tosses you over 

 the cascades, and finally flings you torn, bleeding, 

 disfigured, and lifeless to the bottom of the tranquil 

 pool at its base. 



In the sunlight it resembles liquid crystal ; flow- 

 ing along placidly, transparent as the diamond, it 

 sweeps upon the rocky shoals and flies up in a 

 shower of purest pearls, alternately revealing or 

 hiding some monstrous gem to which it lends its re- 

 flective brilliancy ; over the limestone it is opal, over 

 yellow rocks it becomes onyx, over the red, ruby or 

 garnet, over the green, emerald. 



Bending and waving in ever varying beauty of 

 form, but carrying in its bosom or reflecting from its 

 foam the sunlight fire, a thousand times intensified, 

 of precious stones. 



As the day was well advanced, w^e determined 

 to trust ourselves to the unrehable element and run 



