SOURCE OF ST. Peter's river. 233 



and a half-starved family of savages sometimes fix a tem- 

 porary residence upon some of the water-courses, and 

 subsist miserably upon fish, but it seems as if comfort and 

 competency were denied to both. 



The prevailing rocks are primitive, and are almost ex- 

 clusively the ingredients of which the hills are composed, 

 while the earthy portions of the vallies are made up of the 

 coarse and unproductive detritus afforded by their disinte- 

 gration. The soil is uniformly thin, and in many places to- 

 tally wanting. The stinted growth of the woodlands, and 

 the dwarfish character of vegetation which prevail generally 

 throughout this region, are attributable to these causes. 

 The islands of the lakes and river are similar to the cir- 

 cumjacent highlands, being uniformly based upon rock and 

 presenting rugged and broken surfaces. 



The growth found on the lower part of the river, comprises 

 only the aspen, white birch, spruce, tamarack, and scrub- 

 oak, none of which attain any considerable magnitude. As 

 we approach the Lake of the Woods, the following trees 

 make their appearance, viz. two species of pine, called the 

 white and red epinette, the former of which is more com- 

 monly called the larch. From the latter is extracted the 

 gum employed for pitching canoes, which usually have 

 their ribs and lining constructed of its timber; a small spe- 

 cies of pitch pine called by the Canadians cypress, which also 

 furnishes a gum inferior to that above mentioned ; and the 

 liard, a variety of the poplar, more commonly called the 

 Balm of Gilead, 



The undergrowth is dense in many places, and consists 

 of stinted oak, chokecherry, hazle, pembina or bush cran- 

 berry, service-berry, arrow-wood, wild plum, raspberry, 

 briar-bush, whortleberry, sumac, wild rose, sweet briar, 



