of Lake Stqjmor. 29 



in hummocks, cliffs, and ledges, partially covered with small 

 timber, seldom exceeding 100 feet in height, and usually much 

 lower. The large broad island called the Pate, situated near the 

 west skirts of Thunder Bay, and two miles and a half from the 

 main, is a prominent feature in this region. In addition to its 

 high ridges, ranging about south-west, and occupying its north- 

 eastern and middle portions, at its west end an immense insulated 

 square mass of rock rises perpendicularly from flat and woody 

 ground, to the height of 1400 feet. It gives name to the island 

 from its shape resembling that of a raised pie. This tower-like 

 eminence may be about half a mile in diameter. It is flat-topped, 

 and its sides are faced by vertical pilasters resting on a talus. 



Isle Royale is 45 miles long and nine miles broad in the middle, 

 by admeasurement ; but it tapers towards each end. It extends 

 from opposite Pigeon Bay to opposite Thunder Mountain; its 

 distance from both those places not being far short of 15 miles. 

 Although possessing the usual irregularites of coast, the general 

 direction of the island is north-east, the course assumed also by 

 its several ranges of hills, and the narrow islets and reefs which 

 fringe its north-eastern half. I have not been able to perceive in 

 the hilly ranges of the main of Lake Superior any decided general 

 trend. 



Isle Royale is lofty, and particularly on the northern side of its 

 west end. I am indebted for my information respecting this 

 island to Mr. Astronomer Ferguson, 



I may here remark that the Isles Phillipeaux, placed in all 

 French and English maps, on the outside of Isle Royale, do not 

 exist. In these maps also is laid down, in the supposed situation 

 of Isle Caribou, the island of Poutchartrain, nearly as large as that 

 of Michipicoton. It is a fiction, unless we consider Poutchartrain 

 another name for Isle Caribou, a low, rather woody isle, a mile 

 and a half in diameter, and out of sight of land. 



The general direction of the main shore of Lake Superior from 

 the Grand Portage to the River St. Louis, at the Fond du Lac, is 

 WSWgW. in a slightly concave line, abounding in small cur- 

 vatures, with here and there a shallow bay, one, two, and rarely 



