520 APPENDIX. [No. I. 



felspar, intermixed with small rounded grains of quartz, generally grey, but 

 sometimes tinged red. It contains little or no mica. 



The granite formation continued for a considerable distance on our route to- 

 wards Fort Enterprise, but it contained more and more foreign beds as we 

 advanced to the northward. At our encampment of August 2d, on the borders 

 of the lake, the strata consisted of clay slate, and had a slight dip to the north- 

 ward. At the mouth of the Yellow-Knife River, and in Lake Prosperous, 

 mica slate prevailed. Between Rocky and Carp Lakes, the granite contains 

 many beds of mica slate, often passing into clay slate, and the country is 

 tolerably well wooded. White spruce occupies the rocky situations, Pinus 

 Banksiana the sandy spots, and aspen the low moist places. 



At Carp Lake the hills are of lower altitude, have fewer precipices, and 

 more rounded summits ; the valleys are less fertile, contain a gravelly soil, 

 and nourish fewer trees. This appears to be the commencement of the 

 gneiss, or, as it may be' termed in this latitude, the Barren Ground for- 

 mation, for it seems to exist throughout the great district to the eastward 

 of the Copper-Mine River, termed the Barren Grounds by the Indians. The 

 soil appears to be very favourable to the production of the cenomijces ran- 

 giferina and nivalis, and some other congenerous lichens, but very inimical 

 to every other species of vegetation. On the borders of the formation, as 

 at Prospect Hill, a little above Carp Lake, trees occur only in detached and 

 distant clumps. At Fort Enterprise, a thin grove grows in a very favour- 

 able situation on the sheltered banks of Winter River; but nearer the middle 

 of the Barren Grounds there is not even a shrub to be seen, although parallel 

 to them a strip of wood follows the transition, and secondary formations on 

 the Copper-Mine River to a much higher latitude. Instead of enumerating 

 the different places where the rocks were cursorily examined on our route, 

 we shall confine ourselves more particularly to those of the same formation 

 in the neighbourhood of Fort Enterprise, where, during our long stay, we had 

 an opportunity of observing more closely the relations of the different rocks 

 to each other. 



The country about Fort Enterprise consists of short and very obtuse 

 conical, or sometimes round-backed, hills, of moderate elevations, never dis- 

 posed in mountain ranges, but entirely unconnected and separated from each 

 other by inclined valleys of moderate extent. Their summits are almost 



