16 GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE 



Arkansa, we shall perceive that the same materials 

 are also elevated into ranges of hills, dipping from 

 the horizontal level, though still at a far inferior an- 

 gle to that which prevails in those transatlantic 

 countries ahove noticed. 



In the summer of 1809, my attachment to the study 

 of Botany, induced me to make a pedestrian tour 

 round the greatest part of the southern shore of Lake 

 Erie, to Detroit, from whence I proceeded in a canoe 

 along the same coast of the Huron lake to the 

 island of Michilimakinak, situated near its com- 

 mencement. I then took a southwest direction along 

 the coast of Michigan, to Green Bay ; thence to the 

 banks of the Mississippi, by ascending Fox River, 

 near to its source, and embarking on the Ouisconsin, 

 which disembogues itself two miles below the vil- 

 lage called Prairie du Chien. I then descended to 

 the town of St. Louis. This route, and the subse- 

 quent voyages which I made up the Missouri and 

 Arkansa, afforded me an ample opportunity of in- 

 struction, as to the extent and character of this vast 

 platform of secondary formation. 



The coast of Lake Superior I was then prevented 

 from examining, by the sinister regulations of the 

 company of the north-western fur-traders. Some re- 

 markable facts, however, concerning this lake, and 

 the minerals of its southern coast, are detailed by the 

 adventurous Captain Carver, and afterwards corro- 

 borated by the relation of M'Kenzie. Such are the 

 accounts of the masses of native copper scattered 

 alonu; the shores of the bay, called Fond du Lac. 



