NARRATIVE. 79 



with a crib for sleeping inside, and " Douglass' Hotel" written on 

 a board by the door. This was one of the many places (there are 

 several on this island), where works were commenced without any 

 proper exploration of the ground, the only indication of ore being 

 some veins of calc-spar, which by a too hasty induction was sup- 

 posed to be a sure sign of copper. Small quantities of native copper 

 were found, but not sufficient to pay for the trouble of getting it. 



After breakfast, the weather being favorable it was decided to make 

 the ascent, and we started accordingly, taking a narrow gorge that 

 one of the men, who acted as guide, said led to the peak ; but stop- 

 ping behind for a moment, I lost the party, and could not distinguish 

 the trail amid the multitude of hare-tracks through the woods. I 

 shouted, and was answered repeatedly, but the voices were so echoed 

 back and forth in the narrow valley, that I could not make out their 

 direction, and went back to the camp. 



In the afternoon they returned, reporting a very fatiguing climb, 

 the barometer broken, and the flies very troublesome. The black fly 

 is fond of high and dry situations, and is always found in greater num- 

 bers about the top of a hill than at the foot. They had ascended the 

 peak, however, and christened it Mount Cambridge, in case it had 

 not already been named. The summit was steep and rocky, the 

 rocks pohshed and scratched to the top. Contrary to expectation 

 they found no change whatever in the vegetation. 



The woods here were filled with Linn^a, and several species of 

 Pyrola. We left at five o'clock, passing outside of the island. 



St. Ignace seems to be a collection of peaks, and in the middle a 

 long interrupted ridge, that seemed still higher than Mt. Cambridge. 

 We encamped this evening on a long narrow island lying north and 

 south, consisting of two beaches meeting in a ridge in the middle, 

 and composed of large angular fragments of porphyry with only the 

 corners worn off. Each side of the island was ploughed from one 

 end to the other with furrows a foot or more in depth, parallel to the 

 water. The stones were covered with great clods of lichen, and a 

 few mountain-ashes and spruces grew along the dividing ridge. 



July l^th. — Started at sunrise with our India-rubber cloth for a 

 sail, the wind being for once favorable. In rounding the end of 

 the island we found furrows like those above described, but at right 



