Topographical Notices. 295 



A few weeks previous to our niectiug with the Iroquois, 

 he had made an excursion to Pcnctanguishine, and I now 

 learned that a few miles more would bring us to the head 

 of a considerable river, running in that direction. With 

 the lowest part of this river, however, he was not acquaint- 

 ed, having left it some distance above the mouth, by a route 

 crossing to the Severn. I procured from him a chart of his 

 whole journey, as near as he could recollect it, and also a 

 sketch of the various streams of waters forming the heads 

 of the rivers, running both ways from this vicinity. 



Round Otter lake the lands have very little rise and are 

 timbered with hard- wood and a considerable mixture of 

 white pine. Where we chanced to encamp, the soil was 

 very good and free from stones. From this lake their is no 

 further ascent on the waters, in the direction we now pro- 

 ceeded. A still channel, in places scarcely twice the 

 breadth of the canoe, winds for a mile or two through a 

 tamarac swamp, and ends in a basin of a remarkably cir- 

 cular shape, near a quarter of a mile in diameter. I think 

 it probable that, at some points, this swanq) continues un- 

 interrupted U) the first vvestern stream, not a mile distant ; 

 but, on the route, the marsh is crossed by a sandy bank, 

 twenty to thirty feet high, and about fifty paces over, and 

 close to the round pond, from which is a miserable sinking 

 portage, of half a mile to the first Huron water, a deep 

 pool two or three acres in extent. The surface of this was 

 rained to its utmost brim, by a beaver dam near the outlet, 

 which accounted for the wet and yielding nature of the 

 portage. The beavers have, in fact, nearly etlected the 

 junction of the Huron and Ottawa waters. 



After crossing this pond, there Is a further portage of 

 about three quarters of a mile, over an uneven rocky tract, 



s p 



