282 DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY 
Lower White Elk Lake. The country passed over yesterday and to-day is made 
up of drift hills, from twenty to sixty feet high. The sand is white and coarse, 
while the boulders, which are disseminated through the upper part, were derived 
almost entirely from granitic rocks. The soil is thin, but supports a growth of 
small pine, poplar, birch, spruce, hemlock, fir, a few oaks, and some bass-wood ; the 
swamps, as usual, being filled with tamerack, or, where that is wanting, overrun 
with cranberry bushes. 
Lower White Elk Lake, where we camped, is about three-quarters of a mile long 
and a quarter of a mile wide. Here we found a number of deserted wigwams and 
the remains of a garden. The lake affords great numbers of fish, and the quantity 
of their remains scattered around shows they are the principal article of food among 
the Indians who occasionally inhabit it. 
October 1. A very heavy frost this morning; the thermometer standing at 25° 
Fah. at half-past six o’clock. We crossed First White Elk Lake, and, by a stream 
twenty feet wide and a quarter of a mile long, passed into Second White Elk Lake, 
which is about two miles long and one mile wide. From this we passed into Third 
White Elk Lake, by a stream ten yards wide and three hundred yards long. This 
lake is nearly circular, and about one mile in diameter. It is very shallow, not 
having a depth of more than three feet at any point, and has a mud bottom. We 
noticed here a phenomenon, not hitherto observed in any of the great number of 
small lakes we have seen in the territory. The whole surface of the lake was 
covered with bubbles of light carburetted hydrogen gas, which were constantly as- 
cending from the bottom. 
From this lake, a portage of a quarter of a mile brought us to the Fourth White 
Elk Lake. The portage leads due east, over drift, covered with a better soil than 
any met with for several days past. It supports a tolerably good growth of sugar 
maple, birch, oak, poplar, and a few pines. This lake is a beautiful sheet of water, 
about one mile long and three-fourths of a mile wide. The bottom is covered with 
pebbles and the shore with boulders, some of which are very large; one of them 
being over fifty feet in circumference. This is the source of the east or Manidowish 
branch of Chippewa River; all the lakes and streams beyond this point, which send 
their waters to the Mississippi, being tributaries of the Wisconsin. The hills 
bounding the north and east shores, are about one hundred and fifty feet high, and 
are composed of white sand, with occasional boulders scattered over the surface. 
Almost all the boulders seen, for the last three days, were granitic and small. To- 
day, however, at the Fourth Elk Lake, boulders of other rocks were numerous, 
and, from the size of some of them, I infer that the source from which they were 
daerred:i is not very distant. 
The portage to the head-waters of Wisconsin River starts due east from this lake. 
In about half a mile the trail divides, the left-hand branch leading directly to Vieux 
Desert Lake, the other to a small lake which discharges its waters into the Wis- 
consin, about ten miles in a direct line south of Vieux Desert. We determined to 
mo the shortest route, principally on account of the little provisions we had re- 
, and the certainty that they would be exhausted before we could reach any 
poi where supplies could be had. 
