of Lake Superior. 27 



miles, as measured on the ice \a the winter of 1822-23, by Mr. 

 Ferguson*, iir. 'i'honipson has made it 44- miles by log ; but he 

 followed the curvatures of the shores very closely. 



Up to Grand Point from Fort William, the shore is swampy, 

 but there the hills, which, in lofty slopes and scarps, for some way 

 inland, skirt the Kaministiguia, (and perhaps are highest at 

 " Mackay's Mountain," a little above the south fork,) join the 

 lake, and line it, in precipices from 300 to 600 feet high, south- 

 westward, nearly to Pigeon Bay. They have flat pine-clad sum- 

 mits, and are interrupted at intervals by ravines from the rear and 

 by coves of the lake. A slope of ruins, clothed with birch and 

 aspin, creeps up their sides, and now and then extends some hun- 

 dred yards into the lake. 



The shores of two moderately deep bays, east of Pigeon Bay, 

 are frequently also escarped, but being rather low, disclose a 

 steril interior of massive ridges, attaining an elevation of 600 

 and 900 feet, and affecting a certain parallelism with the coast. 



Pigeon Bay is supposed to be the " Long Lake" of French 

 geographers, and to have been intended in the Treaty of 1783, 

 between Great Britain and the United States, as the point of de- 

 parture from Lake Superior of the boundary line passing to the 

 Lake of the Woods, therein ordered to be designated. This bay 

 is nearly three miles across at its mouth, and rather more than 

 four in depth. Its south side runs nearly east, as a narrow tongue 

 of rock and sandy beach, three and a half miles long, and in one 

 part not more than 200 or 250 yards broad. It ends in Pigeon 

 Point. The north side is nearly twice the above length. It con- 

 tains two coves, the southern and smaller of which, having the 

 additional shelter of an islet, has been used as winter quarters for 

 a schooner belonging to the North-west Company. Off the south 

 angle of the other cove, (containing the mouth of a rivulet,) there 

 is an islet ; and two others, very small, are in the middle of the 

 bay. The scenery of this bay is the same as that of the bays east 



* Astronomer to the Boundary Coinraission under the sixlhand seventh 

 arlicleB of the Treaty of Ghent. 



