The splendid formation of graywacke rocks on Presque Isle river, is worth the whole journey from St. Mary's, to behold. In its spring floods this river is a torrent rushing from a mountain. When drained to the minimum of its summer level, an extensive area of denuded rock is exposed to view, arranged in a stair-like form, and partaking of an air of gloom, from the dark hue of the deeply excavated banks.
Iron river has its course through a similar formation, being east, as the Presque Isle is west, of the Porcupine range. This river has no striking perpendicular falls, but flows down a hackly, rocky bed, in which the water, in its summer phase, stands in pools, or trickles from one triangular tank to another.
The Breast, or Potoash, and the Cradle Top mountains, are two prominent elevations in the primitive range west of the Grand Island. No one, we venture to predict, from our own experience, will ever ascend them without labor, or reach their summits without high gratification.
The outer coast of Grand Island presents the north westerly front of that magnificent sandstone formation, called Ishpábica by the Indians, and Picture Rocks by the whites, which assumes so imposing an outline in the range of coast ruins immediately east of that island. The Great Sand Downs,2 form a continuation of this coast toward the east, and renew in this lighter form, a most picturesque series of elevations, which the former range exhibits in rock. Minuter sections of the coast, and of the banks of the rivers that intersect it, are of a character to arrest attention, and will furnish, in after years, a tissue of glowing themes for the pen and pencil. Among these, we may notice the falls of the Taquimenon, the Monia, and the St. Louis.
2 Les Grandes Sables.
Up to the year 1820, very little was known, even by report, of this interesting and romantic region. The scanty notices of it in the colonial writers were of the most vague and unsatisfactory character. The tale of the massacre of the garrison of Michilimackinac, and of a far off region in which Pontiac exerted his power, had been occasionally heard. But as these events were to be found only in the works of the early French writers, few took the trouble to examine them. Still fewer knew aught of its topography and natural resources, or of the interesting communities of men, women and children, to whom it was "a home and a country" long before Columbus reached St. Salvador. In the year referred to, the gentleman who at present fills the chair of the War Department conducted an exploratory expedition through the region. Its capacities for military occupation, and the character and disposition of its native population and mineral topography, constituted the principal objects of attention. But no one who was a member of that expedition, could remain an indifferent spectator of the striking scenery, and the varied forms of thrilling interest which it threw before the eye. It may be regretted that Mr. Cass himself has given so little of his attention to descriptions of these rife scenes. His graphic notice of the "Pictured Rocks," and his historical illustrations of ancient Indian institutions, will be remembered by the reader.
We have merely adverted to this era, to notice the apathy which has succeeded. The "far West" and the sunny "South," have engaged the pens of genius. But much of the area to which we have called attention, remains, as to its description, a terra incognita. We have given most of the time we have ourselves spent in its solitudes, to the consideration of its phenomena, as mere physical facts, and to the history and language of its native inhabitants. But aside from these objects, we think it a rich field for the future tourist. We anticipate the time, as not far distant, when it will not only attract frequent visits from the literary and scientific, but from all classes who possess the means of enjoying out door health and intellectual pleasure.
We submit the following letters, embracing sketches of some prominent portions of the scenery of this lake, as a sequel to these remarks. They are from the pen of a young man who accompanied the writer of this notice on a tour through that lake in 1831. His mind was much engrossed with the beauty and grandeur of the scenes he daily witnessed, and he wrote these unpretending letters, at snatches of time, by the way. Soon after his return from this tour, he visited one of our Atlantic cities, where he suddenly sickened and died. This circumstance is mentioned, as the motive for retaining the name of the individual, which is associated with recollections of modest worth and ingenuous sensibility.
I.
Granite Point, Lake Superior, July 3, 1831.