48 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



July Ath. — Thermometer one would guess about 40° Fah. this morn- 

 ing. Goulais Point is separated from Mamainse bj Batcheewauung 

 Bay, by far the most considerable inlet on the E. and N. E. part of 

 the lake, (being about ten miles deep, by five across the mouth,) 

 unless we count as such Michipicotin Harbor, which is rather the 

 commencement of a new direction of the shore, than an indentation 

 in it. The general outlines of the lake are simple, and though cut 

 into innumerable narrow coves, yet bays of any considerable size 

 are rare. 



Not long after starting we encountered several canoes of Indians, 

 (^gens du Lae^ on their way to the Manitoulin, to receive their 

 annual " present" from the British Government. Among them was 

 a chief, who stood up and. addressed our men in his own tongue, 

 which, as we were informed by Henry, was a separate dialect of the 

 Ojibwa, but intelligible enough to them. In an unwritten language, 

 dialects soon spring up. A lifetime, the men said, was sufficient to 

 make a noticeable chansie in their languaci;e, thoucrh where large 

 numbers are collected together and any kind of schooling exists, the 

 bibles and catechisms must do much to arrest the process. We 

 stopped for brealcfast at ten o'clock, at a point under Mamainse, 

 much resembling Maple Island in its general features. Charred logs 

 and beds of matted leaves on the beach, showed it had been recently 

 visited. 



From Mamainse onward the character of the shore changes. In- 

 stead of the low sandy islets, we now passed among isolated rocks of 

 greenstone, rising abruptly from deep water, generally bare, but 

 sometimes crowned with a tuft of trees at the top. The rock, which 

 about Gros-Cap is sandstone, often unaltered, now becomes more 

 highly metamorphic. But the larger islands and the edge under 

 the cliffs, continue of sandstone, and are flat and low for some dis- 

 tance to the northward. The line of cliffs is continuous, rising at 

 a distance of a quarter of a mile at most from the water, with 

 an average elevation of two to three hundred feet. The whole 

 surface, down to the very beach, was covered with trees : indeed 

 I may say once for all, that with the exception of some ancient 

 terraces of fine sand and gravel to be described hereafter, and a 

 few summits of bare rock, the entire shore of Lake Superior, as far 



