NARRATIVE OF TUE EXPEDITION. 53 



The lake was still too rough on the following day, and the 

 wind too high, to permit our embarking. We made an excursion 

 inland. The country proved low, undulatory, and swampy. The 

 forest consisted of hemlock, birch, ash, oak, and maple, with 

 several species of mosses, which gave it a cold, bleak character. 

 The margin of the forest was skirted with the bulrush, briza 

 canadensis, and other aquatic plants. The whole day passed, a 

 night, and another day, with nothing but the loud sounding lake 

 roar in our ears. A heavy bed of the erratic block formation 

 commences at this point, and contiimes to Point aux Barcj^ues, 

 the eastern cape of Saganaw Bay. 



In one of these displaced masses — a boulder of mica slate, I 

 discovered well-defined crystals of staurotide. This formed my 

 second mineralogical acquisition,* There were, also, some 

 striking water- worn masses of granitical and hornblende porphyry. 



It was the 1st of June before we could leave the spot where 

 we had been confined. We embarked at six o'clock, the lake 

 being sufficiently pacific, though not yet settled. But after pro- 

 ceeding about a league, it again became agitated, and drove ns 

 ashore, where we lay without encamping. Kewaygushkum was 

 requested to send some of his young men in quest of game. 

 The soldiers and engagees also formed fishing parties, at a con- 

 tiguous river ; but about three o'clock in the afternoon all the 

 parties returned completely unsuccessful. There was neither 

 fish nor game to be had. At the same time the agitation of the 

 lake ceased, the wind springing up from an opposite quarter, 

 which enabled us to hoist sail. This put every one in a plea- 

 sant humor, and we proceeded along the coast till evening, and 

 encamped on a small sandy bay, which puts into the land, im- 

 mediately beyond the promontory of Point aux Barques— an 

 estimated distance of twenty -five miles from our starting-point in 

 the morning. 



At the distance of a league before reaching this point, the first 



* In passing along this coast in 1824, au Indian picked up, in shallow water, a 

 small boulder imbedding a mass of native silver. Breaking off the most promi- 

 nent mass, he still observed the metal forming veins in the rock, and brought both 

 specimens to an officer of the British Indian department at Amherst (Lieut. Lewis 

 S. Johnson), who presented them to me. This discovery is described in the Annals 

 of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, vol. i. part 8, page 247. 



