296 Topographical Notices. 



to a lake appearing to be of considerable extent to the 

 right of our rout, and from which flows the river M'hich 

 was to bear us to lake Huron. It is here a fine clear stream, 

 with a gravelly channel, twenty or thirty feet w-ide, and 

 already with sufficient w-ater, even in the dry season in 

 which I passed, for the easy navigation of a three-fathomed 

 canoe, excepting at a few rippling shoals. This river, by 

 the traders, is called the Muskoka, after the Mississagua 

 chief, who hunts in some part of its neighborhood. The 

 Indians have some other name for it, which I could not 

 learn . 



The nature of the rock thus far across the country, is 

 much the same as on the ridges along the Ottawa, and on 

 the Muskoka it continues so quite to lake Huron ; the 

 shores and numerous islands of which, near the mouths of 

 this river, as far as I can judge, being of the same granite 

 composition as the Ottawa heights. The different parts of 

 the routes, however, present considerable variety in the 

 rock. On the lower main channel of the Nesswabic, it 

 generally lies in round compact masses of a redish hue, 

 without any regular vein. On approaching the Cedar lake 

 it is dark coloured, and strewed along the shore in angular 

 fractures. From that lake to the height, the surface stone 

 near the Nesswabic chiefly consists of dark coloured 

 bowlders. On the Peonga (or Madawaska route), more 

 solid rock is met with, still of the same kind, but various 

 in its appearance. 



On the western descent of the country, there is yet more 

 variety in the granite. It assumes different sliadcs, is 

 sometimes craggy and angular, but more frequently, as on 

 the Huron shore, lying in round solid masses. Nearly 

 from the source of the Muskoka, it is seen at intervals in 



