40 



RED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



striking ; Little Dog Lake lies at our feet, an unbroken 

 forest of pines dotted with groves of aspen and birch, and 

 in the swamp portions with tamarack, stretches in all di- 

 rections from east to west, being bounded in the view by 

 the distant undulating outline of the wooded hills which 

 limit the valley of the Kaministiquia. A portion of the 

 abrupt escarpment of the elevated table land in the neigh- 

 bourhood of McKay's Mountain is distinctly visible in 

 clear weather. 



The base of the Great Dog Mountain consists of a gneis- 

 soid rock supporting numerous boulders and fragments of 

 the same materials. Micaceous rock was observed hi 

 position by Mr. Keating on the east side of the portage.* 

 A level plateau of clay then occurs for about a quarter of 

 a mile, from which rises, at a very acute angle and to an 

 altitude of 283 feet above Little Dog Lake, an immense 

 bank or ridge of stratified sand, holding small water 

 worn pebbles. The bank of sand continues to the summit 

 of the portage, or 185 feet above the clay plateau. The 

 portage path does not pass over the highest part of the 

 sand ridge; east of the path it is probable that its 

 summit is 500 feet, as before stated, above Little Dog 

 Lake. 



In an endeavour to reach the head of Little Dog Eiverf , 

 before it begins to make in its short course of about four 

 or five miles a precipitous descent of 347 feet, I found 

 that much of the soil on the flanks of the Great Dog 

 Mountain was far superior to the average quality in the 

 valley of the Kaministiquia. It consisted of a clay loam, 

 with a gravelly subsoil, containing numerous pebbles and 



* Expedition to the Sources of the St. Peter's River. 



f Little Dog River is a continuation of the Kaministiquia, but, in accor- 

 dance with the Indian custom, it is named from the lake into which it 

 flows. 



