538 APPENDIX. 



locality aucl the bold cape of Point Iroquois, at the head of St. 

 Mary's River, there intervenes an extensive formation of gravel, 

 boulders, and sand. The length of this line of coast is about 

 ninety miles, its breadth to the basinic rim, perhaps thirty. It 

 is covered with small pines, spruce, birch, and poplar, with fre- 

 quent sphagnous tracts and ponds ; the lake shore, where the 

 sands are continually accumulated, being higher than the interior 

 portions. It has, from early days, been a favorite resort for 

 beaver, from which it is called by the natives, Namikong, meaning, 

 excellent place of beavers. 



This tract of the ISTamikong is primarily due to diluvial forma- 

 tions, with a comparatively recent hem of lake action, consisting 

 of sands and pebbles pushed up by the waves of Lake Superior. 

 Through this tract, from the plateaux, four small rivers make 

 their way to the lake. They are, in their order, from west to 

 east, the river of Grand Mauvais, the Twin River, the Shelldrake, 

 and the Tacquimenon, which enters the lake fifteen miles from 

 Point Iroquois. 



Of these streams, the Tacquimenon carries the largest body of 

 water into the lake. It is already a stream of seventy feet wide, 

 and three feet deep, when it reaches the rim of sandstone rocks 

 referred to. Over these, it is plunged, at a single perpendicular 

 leap, forty feet, falling like a curtain. It drops into a vast con- 

 cavity in the sand rock, where the water is of unfathomable depth, 

 black and still. I had reached this point in a canoe manned by 

 Indians. They had urged their way up a very rapid brawling 

 bed for six miles above the lower falls, and when we reached this 

 still, deep, and dark basin, they said that care was required to 

 keep from under the suction of the falling sheet. 



The lower falls of the stream are probably twelve or fourteen 

 feet. They are broken into several fan-shaped cascades, and pre- 

 sent a picturesque appearance — an idea which has also impressed 

 the Chippewas, for they refer to it as a favorite locality of fairies. 

 Hence their name for it. Immediately below these falls the river 

 winds about, making a peninsula, which is covered with decidu- 

 ous trees and a fertile soil. The amount of water power at this 

 point is such as must command attention whenever the country 

 justifies settlement. 



