CHURCHILL AND NELSON RIVERS. 17 C 



grained red gneiss resembling a hard altered red sandstone. Both 

 rocks have a very "dry" character. The general strike is north- 

 eastward or across the strike of the river. 



The distance from the junction of the Little Churchill to the mouth Lower part of 



„„ . i- x i x lnc -, • .. , .Churchill River 



or the river, according to my survey, is about 105 miles m a straight described. 

 line, and the bearing about N". 33° E. (ast.) A considerable stream 

 enters from the left side at twenty miles below the Little Churchill ; 

 but with this exception the tributaries are apparently all small. For 

 the first twenty-five miles in a straight course below the point just 

 mentioned, the river bends about a good deal, but from thence it makes 

 only two (nearly straight) reaches to the sea. From the forks to the 

 end of the first of these, the average width of the river is about half a 

 mile, and few islands occur, but in the last reach, islands are numerous, 

 and the width, for a considerable distance, is upwards of two miles. 

 The tide extends to the foot of the last rapid, a distance of seven or 

 eight miles from the open sea, the intervening section forming a lagoon Lagoon, 

 about two miles broad. The mouth of the river, which is bounded by 

 solid rock, is less that half a mile in width, and the point on the west 

 side projects some distance beyond the other. The fine harbour of Hartfor! 

 Churchill lies immediately within the mouth of the river. 



From half a dozen barometric observations, taken on three different 

 daj T s, I found the river, where it is joined by the Little Churchill, to be 

 705 feet above the sea. This would give an average descent of rather j^. ent m 

 more than seven feet per mile to the head of tide water. Eapids are 

 numerous, especially in the first thirty miles, and again in the neighbor- 

 hood of the angle formed by the last two stretches of the river at forty 

 miles from the mouth. Only one of them, however, is formidable Only one 



J _ _ portage. 



enough to require a portage to be made. This is a steep rapid, which 

 may be called the Portage Chute, situated at twenty-eight miles, in a 

 straight line, below the forks. Here the canoes are carried a distance 

 of 205 paces on the south side of the river. 



In the first twenty-five miles above referred to, in which the river is 

 more crooked than elsewhere, it runs from side to side in a valley two Dee P valley, 

 to four miles in width, of which the slopes, consisting of earth, rise to 

 heights of two or three hundred feet above the water. Beyond this 

 distance, the high banks disappear or recede further from the river. 



The same coarse reddish syenitic gneiss which was found above the Syenitic gneiss. 

 forks continued to be met with in the bed of the river at almost every 

 rapid for a distance of thirty-five miles, in a straight line, downward 

 from this point. In some places it was porphyritic from the presence 

 of large crystals of salmon-coloured feldspar. The strike could scarcely 

 be recognized. At one place it appeared to be W. N. W. 



