The object of the expedition being attained, the return trip was begun, and the sight of the cached boat and provisions eagerly watched for. On Aug. 15 the camp was sighted, but to their horror they saw smoke issuing from the spot. It at once flashed upon their minds what had taken place, and when they arrived they found that their fears had been all too truly realized. Charred remains of the boat, a burned octant, and a few unexploded cartridges were all that remained of the meager outfit upon which they depended to take them to the mouth of the river, a distance of over 250 miles. The camp fire, not having been completely extinguished, had burned the boat and destroyed all their provisions.
It was truly a hard outlook for them, but no time must be lost if provisions were to be obtained. Hastily a raft was constructed, the logs being bound together with spruce roots. In this way, by alternately walking and rafting, the mouth of the river was reached Aug. 29. On the way down the river five rafts had been made and abandoned. The only weapon was a small pocket revolver, and with the products of this weapon, mostly red squirrels and a few fish, they lived until they reached the different caches. Many a meal was made of one red squirrel divided between them, and upon such food they were compelled to make the best time possible. On the way up the river the shoes of one of the party had given wholly out, and he was obliged to make a rude pair of slippers from the back of a leather pack. With torn clothes and hungry bodies they presented a hard sight indeed when they joined their friends at Rigolet on the 1st of September. The party composed of Messrs. Bryant and Kenaston was passed by Cary and Cole while on the way down, but was not seen. Probably this occurred on Lake Waminikapon, the width of the lake preventing one party from seeing the other. It seemed a waste of time and energy that two expeditions in the same summer should be sent upon the same object, but neither party knew of the intention of the other until it was too late to turn back.
Grand River has long been a highway for the dependents of the Hudson Bay Company. The company formerly had a post on Lake Waminikapon, and another, called Height of Land, on the plateau. Provisions were carried to these posts, and furs brought from them by way of Grand River, the parties proceeding as far as the lake, and then, leaving Grand River some distance below the cañon, no longer being able to follow it on account of the swiftness of the water, they carried their canoes across the land to a chain of lakes connecting with the post. This station has been given up many years, and the river is used now chiefly be Indians and hunters in the winter.
It has long been known that Hamilton Inlet was of glacial origin, the immense basin hollowed out by this erosive agent being 150 miles in length. How much further this immense valley extended has never been known. Mr. Cary says that the same basin which forms Hamilton Inlet and enters Lake Melville, the two being connected by twelve miles of narrows, extends up the Grand River Valley as far as Gull Island Lake, the whole forming one grand glacial record. From Lake Melville to Gull Island the bed was being gradually filled in by the deposits of the river, but the contour of the basin is the same here as below. The bed of the country here is Archæan rock, and many beautiful specimens of labradorite dot the shores. In the distance the grim peaks of the Mealy Mountains stand out in bold relief against the sky.
The country about this interior basin is heavily wooded, and spars of 75 feet can be obtained in generous numbers. Were it not for the native inhabitants, mosquitoes, and flies, the interior would present conditions charming enough to tempt any lover of nature. It is the abundance of these invincible foes which make interior life a burden and almost an impossibility. To these inhabitants alone Grand Falls has ceased to chant its melodious tune. Hereafter its melodious ripple will be heard by Bowdoin College, which, in the name of its explorers, Cary and Cole, claims the honor of its discovery.—New York Times.
ANTS.
By RUTH WARD KAHN.
Astronomy has made us all familiar with the conception of the world over our heads. We no longer speculate with Epicurus and Anaxagoras whether the sun may be as large as a quoit, or even as large as Peloponnesus. We are satisfied that the greater and the lesser lights are worlds, some of them greatly exceeding our own in magnitude.
In a little poem of Dante Rossetti's, he describes a mood of violent grief in which, sitting with his head bowed between his knees, he unconsciously eyes the wood spurge growing at his feet, till from those terrible moments he carries away the one trivial fact cut into his brain for all time, that "the wood spurge has a cup of three." In some such mood of troubled thought, flung perhaps full length on the turf, have we not as unconsciously and intently watched a little ant, trudging across our prostrate form, intent upon its glorious polity: a creature to which we, with our great spiritual world of thought and emotion and will, have no existence except as a sudden and inconvenient upheaval of parti-colored earth to be scaled, of unknown geological formation, but wholly worthless as having no bearing upon the one great end of their life—the care of larvæ.