508 



APPENDIX. 



[No. I, 



from which a considerable quantity of salt is annually extracted * . Salt springs 

 and lakes also exist from twelve to twenty miles to the northward of Carlton 

 House, as was ascertained by Captain Franklin in his winter journey ; and I 

 obtained a small quantity of a salt which the Indians procure in that neigh- 

 bourhood, and use as a purgative. They report that in the state of a fine 

 powder, it covers the shores of a small lake in the summer-time to the depth 

 of two or three inches f. 



In our voyage in the spring of 1820, we traced the limestone to the north 

 side of Beaver Lake. In Pine Island Lake the strata are in general horizon- 

 tal. On an island beyond the fishing place, fifteen miles N.E. from Cumber- 

 land House, the strata dipping east 10°, consist of yellowish-grey, very com- 

 pact limestone, resembling hornstone. Twelve miles further on, at the port- 

 age of the Little Red Rock, near the mouth of Sturgeon- Weir River, a more 

 crystalline limestone is coloured reddish-yellow, by oxide of iron. Its strata 

 dip to the eastward at a very small angle. At the Rat Portage, two miles 

 higher up the river, there is an extensive bed of yellowish-grey and somewhat 

 crystalline limestone, perfectly flat, and splitting readily into thin horizontal 

 slabs. A number of parallel fissures running N.W. and S.E., are crossed in 

 different directions by minor cracks. The bed of Sturgeon- Weir River is every 

 where composed of limestone. It has a considerable descent. On the east 

 and west sides of Beaver Lake, the ground is broken by eminences from a hun- 

 dred and fifty to two hundred feet high. These consist of a limestone similar 

 to that which occurs at the Rat Portage, sometimes having a yellowish-grey 

 colour, but more generally coloured deep red by oxide of iron. There are 

 many mural precipices amongst these small hills, and also some deep rents or 

 caves, in which the snow remains unmelted the whole summer. On the east 

 side of the lake, near the site of an old fort, the strata dip to the S. W. at an 

 angle of 30°. 



About three miles from the mouth of Ridge River, primitive hornblende 



* The salt springs, mentioned above in all probability arise from the upper part of the new red 

 sandstone. 



t Dr. Fife analyzed a small portion of this salt, which was obtained from an Indian, and found it to be 

 effloresced sulphate of soda. See page 515. The occurrence of so much sulphate of soda is an inter- 

 esting and remarkable fact ; for though it appears more abundantly in colder latitudes than in others, 

 yet there are no accounts of its having been found in such abundance as the Indians report it to be in 

 the place just mentioned. 



