ON THE SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE SUPERIOR. 435 



In this region we have a state of things in regard to soil, the reverse of what is 

 usual in mountainous countries. The best soil is on the mountain ridges and slopes. 

 The low grounds are generally swampy, and covered with thickets of tamerack, 

 birch, white cedar, balsam, and spruce, and occasionally pine. At the foot of the 

 mountain ranges, where the slope graduates into the low lands, there is an abundance 

 of hemlock, and the ground is covered with moss, and a shrub called ground hem- 

 lock, to the continual annoyance of the traveller. Higher up the slopes, and on the 

 summit, the prevailing timber is sugar maple, of a strong, heavy growth, a few 

 yellow birch and pine trees interspersed. The sugar-tree soil is always good. 



On the lake side of the range, the great plain is a peculiar tract, cut into steep 

 gullies near the lake and near all water-courses, but remote from them, a flat, 

 uniform surface, without stone or ridges, and, away from the swales and swamps, 

 destitute of permanent water. 



The timber is very close, though not high, and the soil appears to be good. It 

 produces in the moist places native grass of good quality, and on the dry portions 

 dwarf pine, aspen, balsam, and birch. 



The mountain ranges are bountifully supplied with springs, rivulets, and creeks, 

 of the coolest and purest water. Roads may be made with reasonable expense 

 along the ranges ; the climate cannot be surpassed for health ; and, if the winter 

 seasons are not too long, for they are not too severe, about one-third of the Bad River 

 country may yet be occupied by men who till the soil. It is well settled, by obser- 

 vation, that the severity of winter is greater on the dividing ridge, forty and fifty 

 miles south of the Lake, than it is between the range and the coast. 



I shall refer to the climate more fully in another place. 



SECTION III. 



COUNTRY BETWEEN THE BAD RIVER AND THE BRULE. 



Fkom the western branches of the Mashkeg Fork of Bad River, to the waters of 

 the Brule, or Burnt Wood River, called by the aborigines Wisacode, is a mass of 

 upland drift, through which no rock has been seen in place, except in the beds of 

 streams, or at the margin of the Lake. 



About the sources of the streams, the country is elevated seven hundred feet 

 above Lake Superior, and is more level and swampy, with, of course, more lakes 

 and ponds than towards the edges of the promontory, at the Lake. As one proceeds 

 from the head waters towards the mouths of these streams, the effect of their 

 waters, in cutting down deep channels in the sand and gravel drift, is manifest in 

 the sharper outlines of the hills, and in more frequent and abrupt valleys. In the 

 central part of the tract under notice, the surface and the mass of the hills or 

 mountains, are composed of soft materials, sand and light gravel ; producing large 

 white and yellow pines, and in places where sand predominates, large fields of 

 huckleberries, growing among scattering cypress and dwarf pines, many miles in 

 extent, On the summits of the ridges composed of coarser materials, such as large 



