SOUTHERN SHORES OF LAKE SUPERIOR 325 



I think (and I do no more) that the extreme restlessness 

 of its waters may have something to do with the fact 

 that there is never more than a narrow fringe of ice on its 

 margin. All the Great Lakes — that is, Superior, Huron, 

 Michigan, Erie, and Ontario — are extremely restless bodies 

 of water. I doubt if some part of their surface, more or 

 less, is ever free from tempest in some degree, in the 

 winter season especially. It is certain that a motionless 

 body of water will freeze much more readily than that 

 which is agitated. The great lakes farther north, the 

 Slave Lake, Bear Lake, &c., freeze entirely in the winter; 

 but I know nothing of them, whether their waters are 

 deep or shallow, though I think I have heard that they 

 are of no great depth. I have certainly heard from 

 trappers that they are not so subject to storms in sum- 

 mer as Superior and its companions. But the Great 

 Bear Lake and other northern sheets of water are, 

 nevertheless, subject to very fierce and dangerous storms. 

 Continuing our canoe voyage still farther east, past the 

 Organ and the Cathedral Rocks, which resemble the objects 

 after which they are named just as much, and no more, 

 than a thousand other rocks in the neighbourhood, Ave 

 come to the Ghost, a most striking representation of a 

 human figure clothed in a long flowing garment, the 

 hand appearing to point outwards, the lower part of the 

 face enveloped in a bandage, but the eye and nose visible. 

 Though this figure is of a yellow colour, it looks from a 

 distance, when the sunlight is strong upon it, as if it were 

 enveloped in a phosphorescent light, and the whole object 

 seemed to me to be one of the most notable on this line 

 of coast. Nine or ten miles farther on we came to the 

 Chapel, another cave, not situated at the surface of the 

 water, but between forty and fifty feet above it. It is reached 

 by a rugged climb among broken rocks, trailing creepers 

 and brambles, and sapling trees, which find just enough 

 soil to support them, but when they grow to any size 

 lose their roothold, and tumble into the lake beneath. 



