Featherstonhaugh^s Geological Report. 151 



is necessarily so irregularly conducted during a single expe- 

 dition. Mr. Reinville informed me that the lake takes its 

 name from a tradition that it had once spoken to a Nacotah 

 chief when crossing it. The valley here is of the usual 

 breadth, bounded by the upland prairies, and the lake is but 

 a prolongation of it. The river dwindles into a mere half- 

 choked-up channel at low stages of the water. The country 

 around continues to be very fertile, the potatoes at the post 

 are of a superior kind, dry and large, and the corn ripens 

 well, so that the country is sure, some day or other, to have a 

 full population. 



Here I deposited my canoe, finding it delayed our progress, 

 and took to the land, coasting Lac qui parle on the northeast 

 side, which is nine miles long, to the Wahboptah or Prairie- 

 root river, where the natives dig a sort of ground-nut they are 

 attached to. This stream, which has some trees on its banks, 

 is about thirty feet wide, and is estimated to be about five 

 leagues from the post. From hence I advanced across the Bald 

 prairie about seven leagues, one-half of which was quite black 

 with the extinct fires. During the march 'there was no pro- 

 tection against the piercing northeast wind, full of humidity. 

 The whole distance was strewed with boulders of granite 

 rocks, flat pieces of yellowish limestone, with impressions of 

 encrinites and other fossils of the carboniferous limestone, and 

 skeletons and detached bones of the buffalo. No rock in 

 place was seen of any description whatever. Numerous small 

 stagnant pools of water occurred, but none that could be drunk. 

 On reaching, at sunset, after making painful efforts to do so, 

 the only trees, at a place called Grosses isles, where ma- 

 terials were to be had to make a fire for the night, we were 

 so sick at the stomach, from cold and inanition, that it was with 

 much difficulty we succeeded in 'producing a light, and then 

 we had to boil, skim, and strain the stagnant water, before we 

 could use it. The succeeding day we had to march eighteen 

 miles during the most severe weather, to a place where some 



