of a part of the Saguenay Country, &c. 159 
cleared around it, at every league or thereabout. The land 
through ‘which the road runs is always tolerably good, in many 
places excellent, and it is intersected frequently by small rivers 
an& streams, favouring its drainage, the want of which many 
portions of the road attest, particularly towards St. Joachim. 
This road possesses t wo excellent characters ; it is remarkably 
straight and remarkably level ; for, excepting at the two ex- 
tremities of it, St. Paul’s Bay and St. Joachim, at the for- 
mer where it passes over limestone, and at the latter granite 
we do not remember any other rise of any consequence. The 
first part of the road is over the same alluvial deposite> 
through which the‘river du Gouffre passes, and which conti- 
nues in one level plain to the foot of the limestone ridge. On 
ascending this the soil becomes more sandy, but it soon 
after improves and is then a mixture of clay, sand and iron, 
to the latter of which it owes the yellow or red colour it some- 
times possesses. The road is excellent for a distance of four 
leagues ; it then becomes very boggy and in some places quite 
impassable for carts. It is only, in such places, by sinking up 
to the knees in a stinking mass of mad, loaded with carburet- 
ted hydrogen, that the pedestrian is able to proceed. This 
character, which continues mere or less to the foot of Cape 
Tourment, is owing to the retentive nature of the soil, and its 
nearly horizontal position. In a short time the money which has 
been expended on the road will have been uselessly employed 
without an additional sum be advanced, to prevent it from be- 
ing completely broken up. 
There was nothing remarkable in the quality of the timber» 
which consisted principally of white birch, until we reached 
the ridge separating St. Joachim from the Cape lands, where 
we met with some of the finest description that had been secn 
daring the whole journey, among which were some well-grown 
elms. The granite of Cape Tourment is known to be the de- 
pusitory 
