SOUTHERN SHORES OF LAKE SUPERIOR 327 



examining it ; for they were Roman converts. The spirit 

 of Father Marquette, whom I beheve to have been a 

 good man, lives all over the lake ; and hundreds of the 

 few Indians that still remain on its shores revere his 

 memory, and are ardent Catholics. There are several 

 other places on the lake, mostly caves and dangerous 

 headlands, that are accredited with bad manitous, who 

 raise the storms and cast the poor fishermen and sailors 

 away. The whole coast hereabout, and for many miles 

 east and west, is a most dangerous one. The craft that 

 is caught with a gale blowing inshore (and it is sure to 

 blow inshore in seven cases out of ten) is lost ; for there 

 is no landing-place when a thundering surf is beating 

 right on to the rocks. The lake navigators therefore 

 give the Picture Rocks a wide berth : the reason that a 

 great part of this coast is nearly, or quite, a terra incog- 

 nita. That is, it was thirty years ago. 



Not much farther on are the Silver Falls, the largest, 

 I believe, on the lake. They drop, in an unbroken line, 

 a distance of about one hundred and eighty feet. This 

 height alone makes the fall an imposing one ; but the 

 volume of water is not great, especially in the middle of 

 summer, when many of the smaller cascades dry up 

 altogether. The Silver Fall rushes out above from a 

 dense forest, and some of the rocks overhang in a threat- 

 ening way. All along this coast, and, indeed, every part 

 of the borders of Superior, the rocks are mostly bare of 

 vegetation. Often there is forest on the top, even over- 

 hanging the cliffs on the south side ; but, on the face of 

 the rocks, a clump of bushes, an odd tree or two, perhaps 

 a mass of creepers or clinging festoons of moss, is the 

 only vegetation I observed on those parts I visited. 



At Chapel Cave, Silver Falls, and other points, there 

 is what is called " a beach." It is only a few feet wide, 

 but afifords a convenient landing-place. At such points 

 there are also huge masses of sunken rocks lying at 

 the bases of the cliffs, and other rocks show above the 



