60 ACROSS THE SUB-ARCTICS OF CANADA. 



ing grounds. With a guide who knew the "shore we 

 should be expected to do so, but with a guide such 

 as ours, who was commonly several miles behind, his 

 connection with the party made little difference, except- 

 ing in the consumption of " grub." 



Three more days passed, and despite the unfavorable 

 weather, seventy miles of shore -line were surveyed. 

 Then a discovery of some interest was made. Just east 

 of the Beaver Hills we found a veritable mountain of 

 iron ore, and that of the most valuable kind, haematite. 

 Coal to smelt it is not found in the vicinity, though 

 there is plenty of wood in the forest. The shore of this 

 part of the lake was very much obscured by islands, 

 upon the slopes of which the remains of the last winter's 

 snow banks could still be seen. 



We made an early start on the morning of the 18th, 

 breaking camp at five o'clock, but before we had made 

 any distance a fog settled over the lake so dense that 

 we could not see ten yards from the canoes. For some 

 time we groped along in the darkness, every little while 

 finding our way obstructed by the rocky wall of some 

 island or point of land, and finally, meeting with a 

 seemingly endless shore, we were obliged to wait for the 

 weather to clear. All hands landed and climbed the 

 precipitous bank, with a view to discovering something 

 about the locality, but all was obscurity. Toward noon 

 the fog lifted, and we were able to make out our position, 

 which was on the mainland and north of Old Man 

 Island. On this point we observed a solitary grave, 

 and near by the remains of an old log house. As to 

 who had been the occupant of this solitary hut, or whose 

 remains rested in the lonely grave, we knew not, but 



