E. Petitot on the Athabasca District. 43 



The north of the lake, which is wholly sterile and rocky, only 

 affords support for caribou, which find a palatable food in various 

 lichens growing there. The animals and plants of the forests 

 and prairies to the south have already been referred to. 



It is obviously impossible that very exact cartographic repre- 

 sentations should exist of so vast a lake, which has only once or 

 twice been visited by scientific observers, and then only partially, 

 having never been explored as a whole. I have therefore here 

 also to make some alterations in the maps now current. 



The lake receives eleven watercourses, of which eight (the Peace, 

 Mania wi, Athabasca, Little Fork, William's, Unknown. Beaver, 

 and Other-side rivers) are on its south. The Grease and Carp 

 rivers enter into it from the Barren Ground ; and the Great Fond- 

 du-Lac river flows in on the east. The latter drains into the 

 lake the wat >rs of the Great Black Lake and the Lake of the 

 Isles, a basin dotted with granitic blocks and fed by two streams 

 which are practically a chain of small lakes. The most southerly 

 of these rises at the foot of Beast's Mountain, not far from Wollas- 

 ton or Great Hatchet Lake ; the northern one rises near Lake 

 Caribou, but without having any kind of communication with it. 



It was doubtless the proximity of these two great lakes to the 

 most eastern sources of Lake Athabasca that caused Hearne to 

 believe that Lake Wollaston was connected with Hudson's Bay by 

 the Churchill river, and with the Arctic Ocean by Lake Atha- 

 basca. Nothing, however, could be more incorrect. The most 

 northern source of Lake Wollaston is the glacial river springing 

 from the elongated granitic water-parting before mentioned. 

 This lake drains into Lake Caribou by the Canoe River, a simple 

 connecting arm, and communicates with the Churchill River by 

 the Deer River. But there is absolutely no communication 

 between the lakes occupying the two slopes of the water-parting. 



I have therefore corrected four geographical mistakes about 

 these Canadian lakes, to which various drainages have hitherto 

 been attributed. The first mistake refers to Lake La Ronge, 

 which empties into the Churchill, and which was also said to open 

 into the Beaver River; but I showed in 1873 that the Beaver 

 receives the La Plonge River, which rises near Lake La Ronge, 

 though not taking the actual waters of the latter lake. The 

 second concerns Lakes Wollaston and Athabasca, as above stated. 



