226 THE A.KCIENT MLNEES OF LAKE StJPEEIOB. 



over the irregular exposed surface of the copper-bearing trap. Out 

 track at length lay through a gorge, covered with immense masses 

 of trap and crumbling debris, amid which pine, and the black oak 

 and other hard-wood, had contrived to find a sufficient soil for taking 

 root and growing to their full proportions ; while here and there the 

 eye lighted upon some giant pine overthrown by the wind, and turn- 

 ing up its great roots grasping the severed masses of the rounded 

 trap in their convolutions, like the gravel clutched from the ocean's 

 bed in the hands of a drowned seaman. On the summit of the ridge 

 the trap rock rises into a range of cliffs, which, judging by the eye, 

 I should suppose eannot be less than two hundred feet high, and in 

 front of them is a sloping tail, the accumulated debris of ages, on 

 which the trees have in some places attained to an immense size, not- 

 withstanding the apparent poverty of the rocky soil. 



In traversing this route the road lies in part along the banks of 

 the Eagle Eiver, and there, some four or five miles from its mouth, I 

 had an opportunity of examining a beaver dam, flooding a part of the 

 river banks, by means of the ingenious structure. No traces, how- 

 ever, gave the slighest indication to the passing traveller that the 

 hand of man had ever wrought any changes on the aspect of a region 

 characterised by features so singularly wild and desolate-looking as 

 those described above. Beyond the cliffs, in a level bottom on 

 the other side of the trap ridge, is the mining settlement of the 

 Cliff Mine, one of the most important of all the mining works yet 

 in operation in this region. The great extent of the works at the 

 Cliff Mine is all the more surprising to the visitor, after finding his 

 way to them through a region where it might seem that human foot 

 had never trod. 



I descended the perpendicular shaft by means of ladders, to a depth 

 of sixty fathoms, and explored various of the levels ; passing in some 

 cases literally through tunnels made in the solid copper. The very 

 richness and abundance of the metal proves indeed a cause of dimi- 

 nution of the profits arising from working it. Iwitnessed the labo- 

 rious process of chiselling out masses from the solid lump, of a size 

 sufficiently small to admit of their being taken to the surface, and 

 transported through such a tract as I have described to the shores of 

 Lake Superior. The floor of the level was strewed with the copper 

 shavings struck off in the effort to detach them, and the extreme duc- 

 tility of the pure native copper was pointed out to me as a cause 

 which precluded the application of any other foi*ce than that of slow 

 and persevering manual labor for separating it from the parent mass. 

 I saw also some beautiful specimens of silver, in a matrix of crystal- 



