APPENDIX. 587 



5. SCENERY. 

 X. 



(a) Scenery of LaJce Superior. By Henky E. Schoolckaft. 



^e^y portions of America can vie in scenic attractions with this 

 interior sea. Its size alone gives it all the elements of grandeur; 

 but these have been heightened by the mountain masses which 

 nature has piled, along its shores. In some places, these masses 

 consist of vast walls, of coarse gray, or drab-colored sandstone, 

 placed horizontally, until they have attained many hundred feet 

 in height above the water. The action of such an immense liquid 

 area, forced against these crumbling walls by tempests, has caused 

 wide and deep arches to be worn into the solid structure, at their 

 base, into which the billows roll, with a noise resembling low- 

 pealing thunder. By this means, large areas of the impending 

 mass are at length undermined and precipitated into the lake, 

 leaving the split and rent parts, from which they have separated, 

 standing like huge misshapen turrets and battlements. Such is 

 the varied coast, called the Pictured Eocks. 



At other points of the coast, volcanic forces have operated, 

 lifting up these level strata into positions nearly vertical, and 

 leaving them to stand, like the leaves of a vast open book. At 

 the same time, the volcanic rocks sent up from below, have risen 

 in high mountains, with ancient gaping craters. Such is the con- 

 dition of the disturbed stratification at the Porcupine Mountains. 

 The basin and bed of this lake act like a vast geological mor- 

 tar, in which the masses of broken and fallen stones are whirled 

 about and ground down, till all the softer ones, such as the sand- 

 stones, are brought into the state of pure yellow sand. This sand 

 is driven ashore by the waves, where it is shoved up in long 

 wreaths, and dried by the sun. The winds now take it up, and 

 spread it inland, or pile it immediately along the coast, where it 

 presents itself in mountain masses. Such are the great sand 

 dunes of the Grande Sables. 



There are yet other theatres of action for this sublime mass of 

 inland waters, where the lake has manifested, perhaps, still more 

 strongly, its abrasive powers. The whole force of its waters, under 



