140 NOTES ON AN ESKER BY D. S. MCINTOSH, B. A., M. SC, 



have been drowned. Here our luggage was transferred from 

 the car to a canoe, and here began the "pleasure in the path- 

 less woods" and the "rapture by the lonely shore;" and the 

 additional pleasure of the stealthy movement of the canoe 

 over the waters. A mile over the lake, then about the same 

 distance along Stillwater up a stream course, followed by a 

 portage of about a quarter of a mile, and the canoe floats in 

 Ninth Lake. The divide has been crossed, and the drainage 

 basin of the Sissiboo River is around and before. The lakes 

 that lie ahead on the route are small and the connecting streams 

 have usually too little water to float even a canoe. A short 

 paddle across Ninth Lake, a portage to Eighth Lake, the glide 

 across the lake and along a rivulet of a hundred yards or so, and 

 Seventh Lake is reached. Over Seventh Lake, followed by a 

 portage of about a quarter of a mile to Sixth Lake, across this 

 lake about a mile and a portage of about the same distance as 

 last one and the canoe is placed in the Sixth Lake stream. 

 Down this stream about a mile, the "turnpike," the object of the 

 trip, lay extending to the east and to the west, broken where 

 the stream has forced a passage through it. 



The country around is level with knobs projecting out of 

 the general flatness. The elevation is about 400 feet above sea 

 level. Much of the immediate vicinity is a fire-barren with 

 stunted second growth and bare patches where there is little or 

 no soil. The underlying rock is granite— a portion of the granite 

 belt of the southwestern part of the Province. Much glacial 

 drift is spread over the area — huge granite boulders grading into 

 finer material. The "turnpike" is undoubtedly an esker. It 

 follows in a general way the direction of east, 10 degrees south, 

 Magnetic. Where the stream has trenched it, the height is 25 

 feet the base about forty feet through and the top rounded, 

 looking very much indeed like a railway embankment. The 

 material is gravel. It forms a pronounced ridge across the land- 

 scape. It was followed eastward for more than two miles. It 

 becomes low and narrow in places, and where the country is 

 wet or swampy it may be absent, but is found again further 



