No. 1.] 



GEOGNOSTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



525 



an opportunity of examining them, consisted of clay slate. At the place of 

 our encampment, on the 30th, the clay slate had a colour intermediate between 

 greenish grey and clove brown ; the surface of the slates feebly glistening, 

 cross fracture dull, structure rather thick slaty, and dip of its strata E.N.E. at 

 an angle of 40°. The Rock Nest bore an exact resemblance in altitude and 

 form to Salisbury Craigs in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. I am inclined 

 to think that the cliff which crowned it was transition green-stone, and the steep 

 acclivity clay slate, but we had not an opportunity of examining them. 



After leaving Rock-Nest Lake, the Copper-Mine River flows for six or 

 seven miles between banks, consisting of gentle elevations and dales, 

 wooded to the edge of the stream, and flanked on both sides, at the distance of 

 three or four miles, by a range of very barren hills, with steep acclivities and 

 rounded summits. The channel of the river is rocky, producing a series of 

 rapids ; but unfortunately the notices respecting the strata have been lost, and 

 we have only a general impression that a hornblendic gneiss, probably of the 

 transition series, was abundant. On descending the river still farther, the 

 high hills recede a little, and the rocks on the immediate borders of the stream 

 give place to fine sand, in which the river has made sections from one hundred 

 to two hundred feet deep. Sandy plains, on a level with the summits of the 

 cliffs, thus produced, extend six or seven miles backwards, and are bounded 

 by irregular ranges of hills eight hundred or a thousand feet high. These 

 hills are round-backed, with moderately steep acclivities, but they are some- 

 times, though not frequently, terminated by high cliffs. We were precluded 

 from visiting them by their distance. The plains are chequered with small 

 clumps of wood, and produce a short grass which attracts the musk oxen 

 thither at certain seasons, but few rein deer frequent this part of the country. 

 About twenty or twenty -five miles below the Fairy-Lake River, the woods be- 

 come thinner and more stunted, and the barren hills approach the water's edge. 

 The sandy banks re-appeared, however, at intervals, and in some places the 

 river expanded considerably, flowing with a gentle current over a fine sandy 

 bottom. Its medium breadth may be stated at three hundred yards, which in 

 the rapids was diminished to half that width. A few miles farther down we 

 approached hills from twelve to fifteen hundred feet high, running in ranges 

 nearly parallel to the river or about N.W. These were the first hills we had 

 seen in the country that can be said to possess the form of a connected moun- 



