SOUTHERN SHORES OF LAKE SUPERIOR 329 



scenery ; and wharves are certainly no improvement to 

 rocks. At both Marquette and Munesing there are strips 

 of beach, with forest-clad hills overlooking it. At Munes- 

 ing the forest conies down to the water's edge, and here 

 the water is comparatively shallow. The few inhabitants 

 who still remain here are mostly engaged in fishing the 

 principal fish, as in all the lakes, being bass, lake trout, 

 and the celebrated white fish. These are cured and sent 

 to all parts of Canada and the States. 



Eleven or twelve miles from Marquette, and fully in 

 view from all parts of the district, is the Iron Mountain, 

 which the Marquette miners declare to contain the richest 

 iron ore in the world. It may be so ; it is certainly im- 

 mensely rich in the most useful of all the metals ; and 

 huge quantities of it are yearly shipped to the great 

 manufacturing centres of the States. At least three 

 hundred small vessels (1869) arrive here every summer 

 to carry cargoes of ore to Cleveland, Ohio, whence it is 

 sent by land carriage to various places of manufacture. 

 Now, in December 1902, it is announced that orders 

 have been placed with British shipbuilders for three 

 steamers, of between 3000 and 4000 tons each,, for the 

 Great Lakes trade. It is mostly iron ore that goes from 

 Marquette, but the whole district abounds in several 

 metals, in a profusion that I can quite believe, as is 

 asserted here, is unknown in any other part of the world. 

 In Marquette harbour there is a small island of the same 

 formation as Iron Mountain. Some specimens, which I 

 afterwards brought to England, from the rocks of this 

 island were pronounced by a Dudley ironmaster to be 

 nearly pure metal ; while some samples of copper ore 

 were declared to contain more than 90 per cent, metal. 

 This copper was obtained on the peninsula of Keweenaw, 

 about a hundred miles west of Marquette. 



Keweenaw, as it is pronounced, is spelled in old 

 maps Kioueounan. It is a Huron Indian word, and 

 means a short cut or passage ; so named because the 



