vated masses of rock, rising precipitously above sea or river waters; but the geography of the continent, if not of the world, may be challenged for so magnificent a display of variegated and at the same time elevated coast scenery, exhibiting such varied shapes of architectural-like ruins, and bathing their massive and columnar fronts in so wide spread and pellucid an expanse of waters.
There is much in the minuter features of such a scene, to elicit admiration ; but to our party, the principal impression arose from the strong appeal external nature here makes to the senses, in favor of the power and existence of the invisible hand, which called the scene into being. To see these vast inanimate masses of rock, piled up in paralleled grandeur for miles along the coast; subjected, by the action of water, to endless mutations of forms, and yet maintaining their imposing outline undestroyed, cannot but furnish a strong proof of the wisdom of that Power, which has so exactly adapted the influence of resistance, to the force of continued action. Go where you will, amid the rude and disrupted scenes of the continent, and the mind is drawn from geologic effects to their remote as well as perhaps proximate causes; but it requires a visit to Lake Superior, to contemplate the existence of those causes in a form which even the skeptic must acknowledge.
For the distance of about twelve miles, this panoramic display of precipices and caverns, arches, turrets, and pillars, and broad-sweeping façades, characterizes the shore ; and it only requires the sun at a certain angle, during a perfect calm, to see the whole lofty super-structure reflected, in a reversed form, in the limpid mirror of the lake’s surface. We gazed, as others have heretofore, and will hereafter gaze, upon the Cascade, the The Doric Rock, or 'Le Chapel,' 'Le Portail,' the Great Cavern, the Turret Rock, and other points, each of which requires a drawing and a description, in detail, to be fully comprehended. Those who have lively imaginations, can see in the mottled and various colors upon the face of these rocks, shapes of all sorts and hues, from Dr. Syntax in search of the picturesque, to the formal and demure cut of the Roundhead, or the headlong zeal of the Crusader. And very many were the 'likes' and 'resemblances' which the party found. Danger, indeed, came before satiety.
As we began to approach their western termination, the wind gradually freshened, and although blowing off the shore, the rëaction of the waves against its prominent abutments, and within the dark-mouthed caverns, produced a sound terrific indeed to female ears. And for several miles, the absorbing object was to make a harbor. We succeeded in getting into the mouth of the little river Pusabikong, although not without shipping several waves, as the boat grounded on the sand-bar, which drives the waters of the stream against the rock, at the very point of their exit into the lake. This is the miner's river of the north-west fur traders.
At this spot, we were detained twenty-four hours, and had the gratification of seeing the lake under the influence of a tempest. During its continuance, we were obliged to shift our tents to a more interior position. The waves were wrought up into winrows of foam, and the spray and water were thrown up an incredible distance. All night the deep resounding roar of the tempest rang in our ears. In the
