2 
PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
an irregular terrace a mile or more in width lead to an extensive 
table land several hundred feet above the lake. The surface of the 
country in every direction is irregularly ridged and furrowed, so that 
ponds and small streams abound. 
The whole region is densely wooded with a heavy forest composed 
chiefly of conifers, maples, and paper birch. Settlement has so 
recently begun that the clearings, except in the immediate neighbor¬ 
hood of the town, are isolated by extensive tracts of unbroken 
* «/ 
forest. 
My work was chiefly done about five miles north of the town, 
near the clearing belonging to Mr. L. W. Besserer. The land here 
is especially favorable for collecting, as it exhibits a great variety of 
features within easy reach. The clearing itself contains both dry 
hillside and wet lowland, while in the woods near by are two small 
lakes surrounded by quaking bogs. The Chippewa Creek, a cold 
spring-fed stream with firm banks and rocky bottom, flows through 
the forest near the clearing. Away from the small lakes the wood¬ 
land near the clearing is mostly dry, though in many places it is 
swampy and densely carpeted with Sphagnum. Along the edges 
of the hills overlooking North Bay on the north are numerous rocky 
outcrops, but elsewhere the soil appears to be abundant and fertile. 
Peninsula Harbor (September 25 to October 25, 1896).—Penin¬ 
sula Harbor lies near the northeastern extremity of Lake Superior. 
It is about 480 miles nearly due north of Chicago, 300 miles south- 
west of James Bay, and 400 miles northwest of North Bay. In 
elevation the country near the harbor varies from 586 ft., the level 
of Lake Superior, to 800 and 1,200 ft. Some of the higher hills a 
few miles further west reach an altitude of probably nearly 1,500 ft. 
The surface is everywhere excessively irregular. It consists in part 
of rock, 1 bare or covered with a thin coating of soil, everywhere 
ridged and channeled by glacial action, and in part of masses of 
glacial till mostly arranged in terraces at various heights up to 
nearly 400 ft. above the present level of the lake. The constantly 
recurring contrasts of horizontal terraces and irregular, abrupt, and 
often precipitous rock masses give the region a peculiar and strik¬ 
ingly individual physiognomy. 
Except in sheltered valleys the forest is stunted, low, and every¬ 
where darkened by a heavy growth of pendant lichens. The trees 
1 A Laurentian gabbro I was informed by Dr. Coleman, of the Toronto School of Science, 
whom I met at Peninsula Harbor. 
