being disappointed, thought they were trifled with. They determined, therefore, in council, to bring matters to a crisis by expelling the aggressors, and, in the autumn of 1849, made a descent upon Mica Bay, and drove away the miners and their families. To repel this attack a regiment was ordered up from Canada, at an expense which would have paid the Indians again and again: but a small part of the force only reached Mica Bay, to find the Chippeways gone; the rest were driven back to Saut Ste. Marie by stormy weather, not without very severe suffering, leading, I have been informed, to loss of life. JUNE, 1848. PINE ISLAND LAKE. 75 CHAP. III. PINE ISLAND LAKE. SILURIAN STRATA.-STURGEON RIVER.— PROGRESS OF SPRING. -BEAVER LAKE.-ISLE À LA CROSSE BRIGADE. RIDGE RIVER.-NATIVE SCHOOLMASTER AND HIS FAMILY.-TWO KINDS OF STURGEON. -NATIVE MEDICINES. EAGLES.PELICANS. BALD -BLACK-BELLIED AND CAYENNE SAND-FLY -BULL-DOG FLY. ILL RIVER. -ITS LAKE-LIKE CHARACTER. -POISONOUS PLANTS METHY WE left Cumberland House at 4 A. M., on the 14th of June, but had not passed above three miles. through Pine Island Lake, before we were compelled to seek shelter on a small island by a violent thunder storm, bringing with it torrents of rain. The rain moderating after a few hours, we resumed our voyage; but the high wind continuing and raising the waves, our progress was slow, and the day's voyage did not exceed twenty-two miles. In the part of the lake where we encamped the limestone (silurian*) rises, in successive outcrops, * Some fragments of large Orthocerata, and a specimen of Receptaculites neptunii, point to the bird's-eye and Trenton to the height of thirty feet above the water, the strike of the beds being about south-west by west, and north-east by east, or at right angles to the general line of direction of the gneiss and granite formation, which lies to the eastward. Many boulders of granite and trap rocks are scattered over the surface of the ground, far beyond the reach of any modern means of transport. Thunder and heavy rain detained us in our encampment the whole of the following day; but some improvement in the weather taking place at midnight, we embarked, and at one in the morning of the 16th entered Sturgeon River, named by the voyagers, on account of its many bad rapids, "La Rivière Maligne." We made two portages, and an hour after noon reached Beaver Lake. The entire limestones as occurring in this neighbourhood. Mr. Woodward says of the latter specimen, "The only wood-cut in the New York State Surveys at all resembling your engine-turned fossil, is a very rude representation of part of a circular disk, with radiating and concentric (not engine) turned lines. It is called Uphanteria chemungensis, and is supposed to be a marine plant (p. 183. Vanuxem). A fossil much like yours is figured by De France in the Dictionaire des Sciences Naturelles under the name of Receptaculites neptuni, from Chimay, in the Pays Bas. This is certainly of the same genus. De Blainville also describes it in his Actinologie at the end of the corals, but offers no opinion respecting its affinities. I should compare it with Eschadites Konigi of Murchison's upper silurian, but that was originally spherical and hollow." 1818. PROGRESS OF SPRING. 77 bed of the river consists of limestone, sometimes lying in nearly horizontal layers more or less fissured; in other places broken up into large loose slabs, tilted up and riding on each other. Boulders of granite occur in various parts of the river, some of them of considerable magnitude, and rising high out of the water. In the lower part of the river the banks are sandy, a considerable deposit of dry light soil overlies the limestone, and vegetation is early and vigorous. When we left Lake Superior, in the middle of May, the deciduous trees gave little promise of life; and, in ascending the Kamenistikwoya, we were glad to let the eye dwell upon the groves of aspens which skirt the streams in that undulating and rocky district, and which, when well massed, gave a pleasing variety to the wintry aspect of the landscape, the silvery hue of their leafless branches and young stems contrasting well with the sombre green of the spruce fir, which forms the bulk of the forest. On the 27th of May, while ascending Church Reach of Rainy River, we had been cheered by the lovely yellowish hue of the aspens just unfolding their young leaves; but the ice, lingering on Lake Winipeg, when we crossed it, had kept down the temperature, spring had not yet assumed its sway, and the trees were leafless. Now, the season seemed to be striding onwards rapidly, and the tender foliage was trembling on all sides in the bright sunshine. It was in a patch of burnt woods in this vicinity that, in the year 1820, I discovered the beautiful Eutoca Franklinii, now so common an ornament of our gardens. Constantly, since the 1st of June, the song of the Fringilla leucophrys has been heard day and night, and so loudly, in the stillness of the latter season, as to deprive us at first of rest. It whistles the first bar of "Oh dear, what can the matter be!" in a clear tone, as if played on a piccolo fife; and, though the distinctness of the notes rendered them at first very pleasing, yet, as they haunted us up to the Arctic circle, and were loudest at midnight, we came to wish occasionally that the cheerful little songster would time his serenade better. It is a curious illustration of the indifference of the native population to almost every animal that does not yield food or fur, or otherwise contribute to their comfort or discomfort, that none of the Iroquois or Chippeways of our company knew the bird by sight, and they all declared boldly that no one ever saw it. We were, however, enabled, after a little trouble, to identify the songster, his song, and breeding-place. The nest is framed of grass, and placed on the ground under shelter of some small inequality; the eggs, |