80 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



angles with tliem, running across the end of the island. Our course 

 lay through long river-like channels, formed bj parallel series of rocks 

 and islets. Near evening we passed a number of Indian lodges clus- 

 tered on an island, with the usual number of barking dogs and squalid 

 children, and hoped to get fish from them, but they had none except 

 dried, which is tough and tasteless, in texture and appearance some- 

 what resembling parchment. 



In the night it blew hard from the westward, and we waked up in 

 some anxiety lest our tent should be capsized, but John was already 

 on hand and secured it. 



July 19^/i. — Detained here by the violence of the wind (^degrade, 

 the voyageurs call it,) until about three P.M., when we pushed on 

 past Point Porphyry, and encamped in a deep narrow bay to the 

 northward, stopping on the way to examine an interesting locality 

 where altered red sandstone and trap were seen in close contact. 



In the sandstone were ripple-marks and cracks, such as one sees 

 in a dry mud-flat. The surface in many places had an oily smooth- 

 ness, and in looking down upon it one might easily have taken it for 

 1 a bed of red mud just left dry. 



This cove was evidently a favorite camping-ground, from the marks 

 of recent fires, and the large number of lodge-poles on the bank. 

 Near the water's edge was a quantity of spruce bark, saddled in 

 sheets one over the other on a horizontal stick, like the roof of a 

 house. We at first took it for a grave, but it afterwards appeared 

 that it was only the bark-covering for the lodges, thus disposed in 

 order to keep it sound. It rained hard in the night, with thunder 

 for the first time on the lake. 



July 20th. — Calm and cloudy. At a distance to the northward 

 were two twin hills, called " les mammelons,^^ by the voyageurs, and 

 by the Indians, much more aptly, " the Knees." One could easily 

 fancy the rest of the gigantic body lying at ease on the plateau, with 

 the head to the north, and the knees drawn up in quiet contempla- 

 tion of the sky ; perhaps Nanaboujou, or the First Man. 



We soon came in full sight of Thunder Cape, a magnificent ridge, 

 ' 1,350 feet high, according to Bayfield, running out into the lake 

 directly across our path. It is composed of metamorphosed sand- 

 stone, the horizontal stratification plainly visible, from a distance, on 



