I 3° 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol. VII, No. 7, 
pink of a granitic mass. Near the track one may see a precip¬ 
itous cliff, bold, rough, scarred and menacing, or some rounded 
and smooth knob with the steep sides bared of vegetaiton by 
forest fires. Great beds of stratified gravel and sand are exposed 
by railroad cuts and by the action of the streams. At several 
places a very tough, light blue, laminated clay was seen. In 
some cases streams flowed over this clay; in other cases it was in 
banks above the stream bed. This clay is very resistant to the 
action of water and is extremely slippery where water is flowing 
over it. Where broken down in large masses by stream under¬ 
mining and subsequently subjected to erosion at varying angles 
from time to time, the exposed laminations often form beautiful 
patterns. 
The railroad after a short distance north of the Soo to a 
point north of Heyden is in the drainage area of the Root River, 
a tributary of the St. Marys River below the Soo. Before 
reaching Searchmont, 30 miles north of the Soo, the road crosses 
tributaries of the Goulais River, and from here to its northern 
terminus it is in Lake Superior drainage. 
The vegetation which clothes these granite masses is “hard¬ 
wood brush.” The view from the railroad of the Goulais valley, 
bounded by its great vari-green mountains is most beautiful. 
On a following page are lists of the arboreal species and of the 
plants which I collected. 
The short summer of this region results in a condensation of 
seasonal range of the species of any group which depend on 
abundant light and heat for their activity. For example, on 
July 30th, I saw Iris, a “spring flower,” and Solidago, an 
“autumn flower,” in bloom literally side by side. Of dragon¬ 
flies I took Chromagrion conditum and Aeshna Z. (see list of 
dragonflies following) about the same lake on the same day. On 
that dav at latitude 42 degrees north in Indiana Chromagrion 
had probably entirely disappeared for the season and Aeshna if 
it had yet appeared at all, would certainly be found in very lim¬ 
ited numbers. This condensation is greatly to the advantage 
of the collector, at least in certain groups. Possibly for a short 
trip no better season than the first half of August could be chosen 
for collecting in this region. About the first of August the black 
flies have nearly disappeared, and I was but little bothered by 
these pests or by mosquitoes or sand flies. It is probable I 
failed to get certain Cordulines and Gomphines which may be on 
the wing in this region earlier in the season, but on the whole I 
believe I took a fair representation of the species. At my home 
at Bluffton, Indiana, no two weeks of the season (April 1st to 
Nov. 21st) could be selected which would yield so nearly all the 
species of that locality. 
