THE HAMILTON RIVER AND THE GRAND FALLS 157 
with small trees, chiefly black spruce, along with larch and 
balsam fir. Lake Attikonak is upwards of forty miles long, 
and is so covered with islands that no idea of its shape or 
width is obtained by a passage through it. Its water is 
clear but brownish, and does not appear to be very deep. 
The Ashuanipi, or main branch of the Hamilton, enters 
Sandgirt Lake on its west side. The river flows from the 
northwest for seventy-five miles in a wide valley, broken 
by long ridges, which cut the stream into a perfect labyrinth 
of channels connecting irregularly shaped lake expansions. 
An intelligent detailed description of the watery maze is 
almost impossible, and would be too long for the present 
chapter. A few miles above Sandgirt Lake the granites 
and gneisses give place to bedded sandstones, limestones, 
and shales, with which are associated bedded iron ores. 
These rocks have a remarkably close resemblance to the 
iron formations of the south and west of Lake Superior, 
and there is reason to believe that, in the future, important 
deposits of iron ore will be found along the upper Hamilton 
River. A change in the physical features follows the change 
in the rocks; the rocky hills become higher and sharper, 
while the ridges are longer and much less broken, causing 
the valley to be walled in between rocky barriers that rise 
from three hundred feet to five hundred feet above its 
surface. 
With the change of soil there is a surprising change in 
the trees. These increase in size; and the monotonous 
forest of small black spruce gives place to a more diversified 
one of white and black spruce, balsam fir, larch, balsam, 
aspen, poplar, and white birch, all growing in the valley and 
on the sides of the hills. This portion of the river is a 
