36 B GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



slightly tortuous, preserves nearly the parallelism of its sides. The 

 depth, ascertained in a few places, varies from 10 to 12 fathoms. A 

 number of little streams enter at the sides, most of which, according to 

 Indian reports, have their sources in small lakes. Four and a half 

 miles from the southern or inner end of the sound, where its trend is 

 nearly south-west and north-east, a narrow passage runs off nearly 

 due southward, joining the expanded portion of Masset Inlet, and form- 

 ing a large island, the general altitude of which is somewhat less than 

 that of most of the surrounding country. This passage is partly dry 

 at low water, but is occasionally used by the Indians in canoes. 

 Great expan- At its southern end the narrow part of the inlet — which has been 



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called the sound — expands suddenly to a great sheet of inland water, 

 which with an extreme east and west length of seventeen miles, has a 

 breadth where widest of five and a half miles. This, to the northward 

 and eastward is bounded by continuous low wooded land, probably 

 based throughout on drift deposits like those seen in Masset Sound and 

 on the east coast of the island; to the west and south by hills, rising 

 to mountains in the distance. Even these, however, are comparatively 

 rounded in form, and probably never exceed 1500 feet in height. The 

 northern and southern shores are of even contour, and often bordered 

 by wide shoals covered with boulders. The western half of the 

 expansion is studded with islands, and it is rather irregular in outline, 

 forming four large bays or inlets with intervening mountainous 23oints. 

 The shores are here steep, with narrow bouldery beaches sloping down 

 at once into deep water. About the heads of the inlets, and near the 

 mouths of streams only, are small areas of flat ground found. Of these 

 inlets that which reaches furthest southward is called by the Indians 

 Tin-in-ow-e. 



Tsoo-skatli. ® n ^ ne sou th side of this great expansion, five miles from its eastern 



extremity, is a narrow passage, the mouth of which is partly blocked 

 by islands, but which leads into a second great expansion called by the 

 Indians Tsoo-skatli, or ' the belly of the rapid.' The largest of the islands 

 in this passage is called Slip-a-ti-a. A small one to the east of it (and 

 connected with it at low tide) Chitz. A third, to the south of the first 

 and in the middle] of the passage, Hlout. Kelp grows abundantly in 

 the channels on both sides of the islands, which cannot therefore be 

 very deep. The tide runs through them with great velocity, especially 

 at ebb, when in the western channel it forms a true rapid, with much 



Second expan- white water. The upper expansion, or Tsoo-skatli, is nine and a half 

 miles in length, and much less in width than the first. Its eastern 

 side, as in the first, is formed of low land, while its south-western 

 extremity is a Jong fiord-like inlet. In this upper expansion there are 

 many islands, the largest of which (Has-keious Island) is nearly a mile 



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