1 62 LOWER PENINSULA. 



the slate quarries, which are about 3 miles south of Huron Bay, in 

 Town. 51, R. 31, Sect. 28. Yrom the Methodist Mission on the 

 shore of L'Anse Bay, the road goes directly east, and for several 

 miles along the surface rock is the horizontally stratified red sand- 

 stone which covers the entire land-spur between Huron and L'Anse 

 Bays, with the exception of a knoll of so-called trap rock protruding 

 on the west side of the head of the bay like an island. 



Near the big bend of Silver Creek, where it changes its course 

 from west to northeast, the road makes a steep descent and crosses 

 the stream. The slate formation is here well uncovered ; the strata 

 are steeply inclined, dipping south, with a strike from northwest to 

 southeast, showing, however, greater or less local variations in di- 

 rection through tortuous plications on a large scale, or through 

 minor zigzag corrugations, which frequently occur. 



The slates exposed at this locality are of a blackish color, hard, 

 silicious, and with irregular, uneven cleavage, unfitting them for 

 roofing purposes ; frequent seams of a compact, hard quartzose, 

 hornblendic and feldspathic rock, in grain resembling a metamor- 

 phosed sandstone, alternate with the slates. Its color is either a 

 greenish black or a light grayish shade. The road intersects the 

 strike of the strata almost rectangularly, presenting, in its further 

 progress, belts of slates several hundreds of feet in thickness, alter- 

 nating with the hard quartzose rock generally designated by the 

 name of trap, all retaining the same general strike and dipping 

 direction. 



We pitched our camp in the northeast corner of Sect. 25, of Town. 

 51, R. 32. The exposures of the slate rock at the bridge across 

 Silver Creek are in Sect. 27, of the same town. Northeast from our 

 camping-ground, in Sect. 19, of Town. 51, R. 31, after crossing 

 over continued slate beds, with southern dip and the general north- 

 west and southeast strike, we came to a high hill composed of a 

 belt of hard, blackish-colored trap rock, about 500 feet in width, of 

 obsoletely stratified structure, with rhomboidal cleavage cracks, and 

 much resembling a basaltic igneous rock mass. On the other side 

 of the crest of this hill the slate rock is met again with the same dip 

 and strike as before. The slate is here more evenly laminated, but 

 not of a quality that can be used for roofing. 



The direct distance from our camping-place to the location of 

 the slate quarries was three miles. In going there we had to inter- 



