390 Canadian Record of Science. 
elevation being 1504 feet above the St. Lawrence. The 
land here is very sandy, so exceedingly fine and white 
in some places that I think it might be employed in glass 
manufacture. Around this lake the country is so covered 
with blocks of gneiss, that nothing grows under the trees 
but ferns, lichens and mosses; I looked in vain while here 
for a blade of grass. 
Lake Kiskisink is about four and a half miles long, and is 
the source of the River Bostonnais, a tributary of the St. 
Maurice. About a mile and a half east of the lake is the 
Metabetchouan river, which, rising a few miles to the south 
east, flows into Lake St. John. Most of the journey north- 
ward from Cedar Lake is down a steep incline. As the 
Lake (St. John) is approached, the larger size of the trees, 
the more healthy vegetation and signs of successful culti- 
vation give evidence of a more genial and fertile region. 
Near the lake we may perceive in the railway cuttings, the 
same grey gneiss, but here and there is red gneiss, the 
crystals of red orthoclase of large size, and in some places 
boulders of Labradorite. 
From Chambord to the western extremity of the lake, and 
apparently extending under its bed, filling up a depression 
in the Laurentian, are beds of Silurian limestone. These 
beds appear to have been but little disturbed, and lie in a 
nearly horizontal position, the bed of the lake having a very 
gentle slope from the shore. The limestones appear to be 
formed entirely of fossil-shells. These are scarcely discern- 
ible in freshly broken pieces, but in places on the borders 
of the lake, especially in front of the town of Roberval, 
south of the River Ouiatchouanish, the weathered surfaces 
of the limestone forming the beach exhibit very fair ex- 
amples of Trenton fossils, among them Murchisonia, Pleuro- 
tomaria, Halysites and others, characteristic of this formation. 
These fossils are protruding from the upper surfaces of 
slabs, generally two or three inches in thickness. So plenti- 
ful are they that the difficulty lies not in the finding, but 
in the selection of the most perfect or most characteristic 
specimens. This exposure seems to extend about two and 
