H. R. S.
Washington.
SKETCHES OF LAKE SUPERIOR.
No part of America presents a more ample field of scenic attractions than the lake referred to. In some respects these attractions are peculiar. It is not only the largest body of fresh water on the continent, but pre-eminently so, the largest in the world. Titicaca, the greatest lake of South America, is computed to be two hundred and forty miles in circumference—a circle less than Ontario, and falling infinitely short of Erie, Huron or Michigan.
Superior is about ten miles short of five hundred, in its most direct line of coast, and may be computed at fifteen hundred miles in circumference.1 About one third of this is caused by its promontories and inlets, which give it a striking irregularity of outline. The direct line of inland navigation, which would be opened were the rapids at St. Mary's overcome, would be about twelve hundred and sixty miles in the outward voyage. It possesses several fine harbors and anchorage grounds. Its general features may be inferred from the maps, but no existing map can be relied on for the accuracy of its delineations. Its basin consists of massy formations of primitive rock, with dykes of trap, and horizontal walls of sandstone, giving rise to much variety in its features. Islands, mountains and cliffs, pass the eye of the voyager, with an animating succession, and appear as if they were suspended in the pellucid waters, for which this lake has been noted from the earliest times. This purity may be noticed in connexion with the absence of limestone among its formations, no locality of which has hitherto been discovered. It has, apparently, been the theatre of extensive geological convulsions, which have lifted up its horizontal rocks for a hundred and twenty miles in extent. Other portions bear striking evidences of having been submitted to oceanic action, the effect of which has been to break down its sandstone coasts, and deposit the debris in extensive plains, or sand mountains. Peaks, of a black basaltic aspect, cast their angular shadows over some of the more westerly portions of the lake; and the prospect from some of the higher points of those on which we have stood, is such as to excite the most exalted and transporting conceptions.
1 Mackenzie says seventeen hundred.
The Porcupine mountains may be distinguished, from all that is known of them, as a volcanic group. They are situated in latitude 46° 52'. It would be practicable, in the range of American mountain scenery, to indicate points which have a higher elevation above the sea. Some of the peaks of New England or Virginia lift the observer into the mid heavens. But they are entirely wanting in the effect produced by a transparent mirror of water at their base—for it must be remembered, that no increase of altitude or magnitude can compensate for the absence of water. There is a single precipice, in these mountains, which the Indians represent to be one thousand feet in perpendicular height, having a deep, crater-shaped lake at its base.
The peninsula of Kewena extends into lake Superior about forty-five miles from its southern shore—the last ten or fifteen of which exhibit the shape of a lofty comb of the trap formations. Two points of this, which are sometimes called the Mamelles, have been descried, in clear weather, sixty-five miles. From the top of this ridge, the spectator looks to the east, and the west, and the north, and beholds one interminable sheet of crystal water. It seems, from the height, that the action of a single tempest, on so vast a mass of water, would be sufficient to prostrate the whole in ruins. Yet there is a breadth of several miles of solid rock, which has resisted the storms of ages. The effects of the action of the water, are the most striking on its western coast, which has been fretted into bays and inlets, leaving huge, castellated portions of unbroken rock standing in the water. These isolated masses, in misty weather, assume a spectral aspect. The Indians, who find aliment to their superstitions in scenes of awe, formerly deemed this part of the peninsula sacred, and never passed around it in their canoes.