28 On the Geography and Geology 



of it. The Pigeon River* enters Lake Superior, at the south cor- 

 ner of the contracted bottom of this bay. I do not know its size 

 at the mouth. One mile and a half from the lake, it presents 

 a fall 120 feet high; then dividing a little below, into two 

 channels for a short space. 



From Pigeon Point there succeeds, for six miles to Point Cha- 

 peau, the east headland of Grand Portage Bay, a rocky coast, 

 tolerably straight, excepting a bay at the west end, a mile and a 

 half broad. The views here are remarkably fine, especially as 

 assisted by the numerous and occasionally lofty islands which 

 chequer the neighbouring waters. The interior is nearly naked ; 

 an assemblage of mountain flanks cut through by defiles. By no 

 means the highest of these ridges, that overlooking Point Cha- 

 peau, Mr. Thompson found by geometrical admeasurement to be 

 840 feet high. Point Chapeau is a rocky bluff, about 30 feet high, 

 which rises slowly, in the rear, to the height above-mentioned. It 

 is rather more than two miles from the brook, at the bottom of 

 Grand Portage Bay, around which the commercial establishments 

 of the fur-traders were formerly placed. This bay is two miles 

 and three-quarters wide, and about a mile and a third deep. Its 

 shape is semicircular. It has along its curving bottom an exten- 

 sive beach of sand, but has ledges of rock and shingle elsewhere. 

 The warehouses, dwellings, stables, and gardens, occupied a flat 

 about three quarters of a mile broad, but not so deep, and backed 

 by high hills. 



Near Point Chapeau is Sheep Island, (Isle aux Moutons.) It 

 is several hundred yards in diameter, and is formed of a collection 

 of rocky mounds, skirted on the north by a small alluvial deposit. 



Numerous islands occur at irregular distances between Thunder 

 Bay and the Grand Portage. Their size and position are best 

 seen by an inspection of the map ; more however should be in- 

 serted. They are largest and most frequent along shore, but 

 islets and rocks stretch to Isle Royale. They are rocky, and are 



* This river will be more minutely described in a paper on the topography 

 and geology of the chain of streams and lakes leading from the Grand Portage 

 on Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods, 



