of Lake Superior. 263 



with a dense vegetation. Mr. Sayer, an intelligent man, formerly 

 a clerk in the employ of the North-West Company of Fur Traders 

 informs me, that there is a ridge of maple growing on an argil- 

 laceous soil, which extends, at least, twenty miles westward from 

 near the Grand Portage. To this the neighbouring Indians resort 

 to make sugar. At the back of Michipicoton Fort, Mr. M'Intosh, 

 the superintendent of that post, says that there is another maple 

 ridge ranging parallel with the lake for a long way. 



With the exception of the vicinity of Missipaga, parts of the 

 Spanish River*, and some occasional spits of sand at the mouths 

 of certain rivers, the north of Lake Huron, as far as I am aware f, 

 is altogether composed of naked rocks ; but, besides the clay cliffs 

 on the S.E., the fifty-five miles of east coast from Penelang- 

 inshene, the British naval station, to the south side of Notawasaga 

 Bay, consist of two, and sometimes of three undulating plat- 

 forms of alluvion, several hundred feet high, rounded into knolls 

 and intersected by water courses, and extending to the N.W. 

 shores of Lake Semcoe, and, in fact, to Lakes Ontario and Erie. 

 They are at this part of Lake Huron of siliceous sand, brown, and 

 often ferruginous, intermixed with pale and dark blue clay, and 

 covered with blocks of mountain limestone, Labrador feldspar, 

 gneiss, and greenstone. They are proved to be deposited by fresh 

 water, in a beautiful manner, by the frequent occurrence in them 

 of the shells that now inhabit the lake. About twelve miles from 

 the lake, and three from the head or the rapids of the picturesque 

 River Notawasaga (whose sources are in the forests and morasses 

 near to, and west of, Lakes Simcoe and Ontario), and on its right 

 bank, there are two horizontal layers each from four to six inches 

 thick, of large shells, of the genus Alasmadonta, common in the 



* This the largest river entering Lake Huron, except St. Mary's, was only 

 known to Indians and a few traders until explored in 1820, by Lieutenant 

 Bayfield, R.N. Neither it, nor its great bay (or sound), is represented on 

 any map. 



t The Canoe Route down the north shore frequently leaves the main for 

 mileii together, and tiaverseK successive dense Archipelagoes of islands. 



