THE PENGKEE IRON RANGE. 
393 
ions, and cooking utensils, to be carried by a packer in a large 
bundle on his back, and we are ready for a tramp through the 
dense forest, mostly of evergreen trees, to the Penokee Iron 
Range, whose distant summits we have already seen towards 
the south-east from La Pointe. I carried with me, as usual on 
such occasions, a tin box for collecting botanical specimens, 
and a mineral hammer. 
Though there is as yet no proper road for us to travel, there 
is a very good trail, so that we were saved much of the labor 
and hardship encountered by the first explorers in this interest¬ 
ing part of our State. A distance of six miles over a gently 
rising plain, brings you to the Maskeg (now called White river) 
branch of Bad river. It runs through a valley, which it has 
cut for itself out of the red marl, to the depth of a hundred 
feet or more. The trees you pass are pine, hemlock, balsam, 
arbor-vitas (called white cedar), tammarack, with occasionally 
poplar and birch. The bark of the white cedar may be taken 
from the trees in large pieces and is applied to various useful 
purposes. It is employed to make an out-side covering to log 
houses, thus keeping out much of the winter cold ; surveyors 
and others use it to make temporary coverings for the night 
in lieu of a tent. The bark of the balsam tree is swelled into 
numerous little protuberances, within which is the aromatic 
gum so extensively known as “ Canada balsam,” and which 
gives name to the tree. Here the sandstone shows itself again, 
interlaminated with thick beds of soft red shale, the disintegra¬ 
tion of which by former geological action has given rise to the 
red marl so abundant along the lakes. 
At the distance of about twelve miles from Ashland we pass 
the Marangowin, another of the western branches of Bad river, 
at a place where a farm has been opened. A stalk of oats grown 
here measured five feet nine inches high ; and a pine tree we 
found to be thirteen feet in circuit, four feet above the ground. 
The soil on the river bottom is sandy, but rich and very pro¬ 
ductive. At the base of many of the trees, we found large 
quantities of small chips, that had been thrown down by “the 
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