Feathers ionhaugh\^ Geological Report, 



119 



if I had seen any one to impart the information to, I should 

 have informed them would have greatly improved their scanty 

 crops, if they had thought proper to dress their lands with it. 



Intending to strike the Mississippi by the way of the Wis- 

 consin river, I proceeded from this point to the mouth of Fox 

 river, at the bottom of Green bay of Lake Michigan, where 

 Fort Howard is situated, and where a flourishing village, 

 named Navarino, is rapidly growing up. I had no opportu- 

 nity of landing at any of the islands in Lake Michigan, but 

 passed sufficiently near to the fine sections exhibited in the 

 lofty banks of the southernmost of the Wagooshugamessun, or 

 Fox islands, to perceive they w^ere a white incoherent sand- 

 stone, such as I subsequently met extensive beds of further 

 to the southwest. On examining the country as rapidly as 

 my time permitted, I found a ledge of strong horizontal beds 

 of carboniferous limestone, about eight miles from Navarino 

 on the east, and distant about two miles from the lake ; these 

 contained orthocera, together v»^ith the characteristic fossils. 

 Between this ledge and the shore other indisputable evi- 

 dences present themselves of the recession of the waters of 

 the lake. The soil about Navarino is a rich siliceo-calcareous 

 loam, of the greatest fertility. 



At this place that singular phenomenon which was observed 

 by the old French discoverers, and which is mentioned by 

 Charlevoix, still attracts the attention of the traveller, f 

 had observed in the neighborhood of Fort Gratiot, on Lake 

 Huron, evidences of a varying jevel of the waters ; but as it 

 did not differ from that of all large bodies of fresli w^ater, I 

 attributed it to the influence of the winds on tlie surface ; but 

 here is a perfect representation of a tidal sliore. Iliad put rods 

 down to form some estimate of this movement, and ascertained, 

 soon after my arrival, that from 6 P. M. to 11 A. M. of the 

 succeeding day, the water had ebbed twenty-four feet, and 

 one foot perpendicular. Subsequently I found the flux and 

 reflux to be quite irregular as to periods, althougli the phe- 



