GEOGNOSTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



511 



to the eastward at an angle of 80°, and contain beds of hornblende rock and 

 slaty quartz rock ; the latter resting upon the former, and containing many 

 minute veins and disseminated particles of calc-spar. At the Barrel Portage, 

 two miles farther to the eastward, the same rock dipping to the northward at 

 80°. contains precious garnets. The river here has a majestic appearance, 

 being upwards of a mile wide, and bounded by rocks two hundred feet high. 

 The current is gentle. 



At the Island Portage, four miles to the eastward of the last mentioned place, 

 the stream is barred across by a ridge of red gneiss containing much felspar. 

 It dips N.N. W. at an angle of 80°, and encloses many kidneys of flesh-coloured 

 felspar. Eleven and a half miles to the westward, the gneiss contains horn- 

 blende ; and half a mile farther on it approaches to mica slate, and dips N.N.W. 

 at an angle of 45°. Beyond this place the river expands a little, and the rocky 

 eminences have a general round-backed outline ; but on a near approach they 

 are rugged, and some short conical peaks occur. At the Little Rock and Moun- 

 tain Portages, the strata consisting of mica slate dip N.W. at an angle of 60°; 

 and at the Otter Portage, a light-red fine-grained gneiss dips to the northward 

 at an angle of 70°. At the Great Devil Portage, two and a half miles N. W. b. W. 

 of the Otter Portage, compact gneiss occurs dipping to the N.W. 80°. An ex- 

 pansion of the river above this place, termed the Devil's Lake, is very beauti- 

 ful, containing many rocky islands, covered with spruce and aspen trees. The 

 strata of gneiss in this lake had a direction from east to west, and were near- 

 ly vertical. At the Big Rock Discharge, nine and a half miles west of the Devil's 

 Portage, the strata consist of gneiss. In an island, a little above it, there is a 

 vertical bed of mica slate ; and a mile farther on, at the Little Trout Rock, there 

 is a bed of granite. Half a mile above, at the Trout Portage, the strata of 

 gneiss enclose a bed of granite ; and seven and a half miles S.W. b. W., at the 

 Osier Portage, the strata consist of gneiss. Above this the river forms a con- 

 siderable expansion, which is termed Black Bear Island Lake. The islands in 

 this lake are very numerous, and consist mostly of round-backed elevations of 

 gneiss extremely barren. One steep conical island, near the east end of the 

 lake, consists entirely of large rounded masses of light-red granite, piled on each 

 other to the height of a hundred and fifty feet. It seemed as if the softer parts 

 of a bed of granite, projecting above the gneiss strata here, had been washed 

 away, and left the more durable masses in their present position. This island 



