124 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



This huge basin is filled with clear, icy water, of a greenish cast, 

 the average temperature about 40 ° Fahrenheit. * Its surface is 

 six hundred and twenty-seven feet above the level of the sea ; its 

 depth, so far as actual soundings go, is a hundred and thirty-two 

 fathoms, that is, one hundred and sixty-five feet below the sea level ; 

 but Bayfield conjectures it may be over two hundred fathoms in some 

 places. f 



In geographical position the lake would naturally seem to lie 

 within the zone of civilization. But on the north shore we find we 

 have already got into the Northern Regions. The trees and shrubs 

 are the same as are found on Hudson's Bay ; spruces, birches and 

 poplars ; the Vaccinia and Labrador tea. Still more characteristic 

 are the deep beds of moss and lichen, and the alternation of the dense 

 growth along the water, with the dry, barren, lichenous plains of the 

 interior. Here we are already in the Fur Countries ; the land of 

 voyageurs and trappers ; not from any accident, but from the char- 

 acter of the soil and climate. Unless the mines should attract and 

 support a population, one sees not how this region should ever be 

 inhabited. 



This stern and northern character is shown in nothing more clearly 

 than in the scarcity of animals. The woods are silent, and as if de- 

 serted ; one may walk for hours without hearing an animal sound, 

 and when ho does, it is of a wild and lonely character ; the cry of a 

 loon, or the Canada jay, the startling rattle of the arctic woodpecker, 

 or the sweet, solemn note of the white-throated sparrow. Occasion- 

 ally you come upon a silent, solitary pigeon sitting upon a dead 

 bough ; or a little troop of gold-crests and chickadees, with their 

 cousins of Hudson's Bay, comes drifting through the tree-tops. It 

 is like being transported to the early ages of the earth, when the 

 mosses and pines had just begun to cover the primeval rock, and 

 the animals as yet ventured timidly forth into the new world. 



The lake shows in all its features a continental uniqueness and 

 uniformity, appropriate to the largest body of fresh water on the 



* Logan, and Dr. Charles T. Jackson. A recent letter from the lake, dated July 1, 

 1849, mentions the temperature of the surface, at eight o'clock, P. M., as 37°. 



t According to Bayfield's paper in the Transactions of the Literary and Scientific 

 Society of Quebec, (cited in Bouchette's " British Dominions in North America." I., 

 128, et scq.) 



