1921-22 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS 87 



a Russian and Swede and commenced work on the 22nd May with this small 

 party. A week later I returned to Tannin and endeavoured, without success, 

 to get men in that district, and was forced to telegraph to the Sault for six 

 Indians. These men joined us on the 12th of June. 



Our place of beginning was a point in the east boundary of the Grand 

 Trunk Pacific Railway Block No. 7, at a distance of six miles north from the 

 southeast angle of that block. This point was established by running east 

 astronomically from a witness post on a point in Palette Lake and offsetting 

 eleven chains and forty links south. I ran my base line east astronomically on 

 six mile chords from the end of the third mile. The first three miles being con- 

 sidered as the easterly half of a chord passing through the 96 mile post on O.L.S. 

 Niven's meridian. I intersected my meridian of 1921 at 32 miles 46 chains 

 16 links on the base line. I continued my base line east astronomically 41 

 miles 64 chains 16 links, to the west boundary of the Nepigon Forest Reserve, 

 run by Phillips & Benner in 1920. My posting from the west to east ran, 

 respectively, zero to 32 miles 46 chains 16 links, to 24 miles, to 17 miles 

 64 chains 16 links, in accordance with the marked plan accompanying my 

 instructions. From the point 24 miles east of my meridian of 1920, I ran north 

 astronomically 37 miles 43 chains and 26 links to the Canadian Government 

 Railway and arrived back in Sault Ste. Marie on the 5th of August. 



A bush fire from the southwest was burning the territory traversed by the 

 first eighteen miles of my base line during the progress of the work, and had it 

 not been for the proximity of large lakes all along this section, it would have 

 been much too dangerous to carry on. Heavy rains extinguished the fire at 

 the time when it threatened to block me completely. 



The party consisted of twenty-one in all, made up as follows: — - 



1 Surveyor. 



1 Assistant, 



2 Chainmen, 

 1 Cook, 



1 Cookee, 



5 Axemen, 



5 Packers on line, 



4 Packers with freighting canoes, 



1 Geologist attached to party. 



This distribution was maintained throughout the whole course of the sur- 

 vey except for the last twenty-five miles of the msridian, when I put on two 

 extra choppers and sent two men out to the railway with the canoe. 



Soil. 



There are no areas in the country traversed by these lines suitable for 

 agriculture. The covering is ninety-five per cent, gravel and boulders and five 

 per cent, solid rock. 



Minerals. 



I found no trace of valuable minerals. The formation along the base line 

 and the southerly twenty miles of the meridian is Laurentian, and the northerly 

 seventeen miles of the meridian is Kewatin and schists. 



