SOUTHERN SHORES OF LAKE SUPERIOR 319 



The cliffs seemed to be fax more rugged and elevated 

 than those opposite on the Canadian side, but I did not 

 examine the latter so closely as those east and west of 

 Marquette. The variety of rock shapes and forms in this 

 district is simply marvellous, and in fantastic variety is 

 not to be compared with anything I have seen in North 

 America, excepting only the Sierra Nevada and the 

 Yosemite Valley. 



The elevation of the rocks is in some cases very con- 

 siderable, and they often rise sheer from the water, so 

 that it is impossible to land for a distance of many miles. 

 There is no beach, not even a ledge broad enough to give 

 a cat foothold. Of course when the ascent is so steep 

 there is no vegetation ; the rocks are bare. At the top 

 there are generally trees, sometimes broad-leaved and 

 sometimes pines ; and there are places where the rocks 

 shelve down with a sufficient slope to permit trees and 

 other vegetation to grow quite down to the water's edge. 

 At such places there is usually a narrow strip of beach ; 

 at others there is a broader beach, but it is nowhere of 

 any great breadth. The nomenclature of these cliffs and 

 the mountains is of the usual idiotic kind found through- 

 out the States, and which gives one the idea that some 

 individual has travelled through the land with a certain 

 list of names and no power of invention. Everywhere we 

 have Lovers' Leaps, Phantom Rocks, Painted Rocks, and 

 Old Men's Faces galore, and these designations are re- 

 peated with a confusing frequency. 



I commenced my inspection of these remarkable 

 cliffs to the eastward of Munesing. They there bear the 

 title of " Picture Rocks," and there is not a mammal, 

 bird, or inanimate object that some one or other of 

 them is not thought to represent sometimes with truth, 

 though it too often happens that different persons' ideas 

 on the supposed resemblance greatly vary; what one 

 declares to be an elephant's head, another thinks more 

 nearly approximates a pig's snout, and so on. My own 



