66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



under noble trees stood a puffing engine and several men were working in the midst 

 of that lonely forest at what seemed to me a hopeless undertaking. In the neigh- 

 bourhood, however, some settlers had already taken up their abode on the good al- 

 luvial soil. The forest was burned over, only a few chari-ed rampikes rose here and 

 there ; plain log houses were built in which, however, there was an air of comfort. 

 We also came upon a school in the midst of the forest as we returned. 



At Rat Portage also, on the boundary between Huronian and Laurentian rocks, 

 gold appears. Consequently this little town at the northern end of the Lake 

 of the Woods is growing rapidly and the lake is crossed by numerous 

 steamboats. The principal deposit lies on a little island in the lake ; this mine, 

 the Sultana, was the object of an excursion for which we were as much indebted 

 to the municipality of Rat Portage as we had been to that of Sudbury two days 

 before for the trip to Vermilion Lake. A little steamer took us through the 

 labyrinth of islands and narrow channels past Indian camps and burial grounds to 

 the Sultana, where most of the labourers are Scandinavians. We had a jolly picnic, 

 viewed the gallei'ies and workings of the mine and then the active members of the 

 party hurried to the highest point of the island which had already been cleared of 

 wood. The view from above was wide and striking — the lake in the woods, the 

 wooded islands in the lake, rising as smooth, polished, rocky humps like the point 

 on which we stood, and a cloudless sky above it all. Toward evening we went to 

 another little island where peculiar breccia appears in the Hui-onian slate, the so- 

 called agglomerate ; whilst next morning Prof. Coleman showed us Huronian 

 conglomerate in the town of Rat Portage. They can be recognized as such at once 

 on the surface of the rounded humps, but one cannot strike off fragments fi-om 

 them. They leave it certain that the material of the Huronian slate has here 

 orginated in the destruction of an old land. Undoubtedly we have in this case a clastic 

 formation. However, the so-called Laui-entian gneiss made the impression on me 

 of a rocky mass, consolidated at a great depth, of a bedded granite somewhat like 

 the Central gneiss of the Alps. The occurrence of the gold of the Sultana mine 

 reminded me forcibly of that of the Hohen Tauern. There, too, the gold is found 

 on the border between bedded granite and dark slate, the so-called Neuern, which 

 is exactly like the Huronian of Canada. The exposures themselves did not seem 

 to me, however, at all remarkable, only I was obliged to marvel how they could 

 be discovered. This applies also to the nickel and anthracite of Sudbury. Only a 

 very close investigation of the country could lead to their discovery. Such an 

 investigation is in fact carried on by the ' ' prospectors' ' who traverse North America 

 in all directions even to the depths of the remotest forests in their search for iron 

 aud coal. 



Between Sudbury and Rat Portage we came on the most beautiful landscapes 

 of the Laurentian country which, with all its charms, is in general monotonous. 

 In the night of August 28th-29th we crossed the watershed, some 400 or 

 500 meters high, between the Ottawa and Lake Superior, which latter we reached 

 at noon the next day. The Laurentian country rises 200 or 300 meters above it 

 and descends towards it with a bold fringe of precipitous rocks. Its valleys run 

 under the water, the inlets of the lake extend far into the land. The railway 

 winds along the shore for about 300 kilometers. Now it ascends the foot-hills 

 from which a delightful prospect unfolds itself upon the sea-like lake which covers 

 more space than Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia together ; now it passes around 

 charming bays in some of which are friendly havens. 



A way had been prepared for it by the earlier shore line of the lake ; the whole 

 coast up to 120 meters above the level of the water is terraced in the plainest 

 possible fashion by the old shore lines ; gorges are to be seen in the foot hills, and 

 piles of debris in the bays. It is the declivity of a mountain range along which we 

 are travelling. But from the Nipigon Bay on the scenery changes. In front of the 

 Laurentian heights with their irregular rise and fall, lie table mountains of a 

 peaceful form. They consist of irregular beds of pre-Cambrian age, whose mighty 

 tops are of trap. The boundary between this table mountain material and the 

 Laurentian rocks is very remarkable. At the station, Mazokama, one can see 

 how the latter is continued with its irregular upper surface under the former. One 

 gets the impression that its typically characteristic irregularity dates from pre- 

 Cambrian times. The same thing is seen in the northwest of Scotland, where the 



