reëmbarked, but the current was still rapid; in some places we estimated it at six miles per hour. At the Décharge des Paresseux we again landed, and walked up some hundred yards while the men pushed the boats up with poles, which they grasped by the middle, using the ends alternately on each side.

We encamped at sunset, climbing up a steep clay bluff to an open spot above, for we could find no landing on a level with the water. Very cold in the evening, silencing the swarms of musquitoes that greeted us on our first arrival.

July 23d.- Very cold this morning also, and the dew heavy. Even inside of the tent some of the blades of grass were hung with dew-drops, and outside every thing was as wet as if from a smart shower. Without breakfasting we walked through the dripping woods to the Falls. On the way I noticed an old martin-trap, made like the culheag of our woods, viz. the butt of a sapling arranged to fall like a portcullis across the mouth of a hole in which the bait is placed. We came out first in an open space, bounded by a broken cliff of slate-rock, whence we could hear, but not see the cataract. The river here flows between high perpendicular walls of rock, and here commences the Portage de la Montagne. Following up the portage path about a quarter of a mile, we struck off through the thick arbor-vitæ woods, guided by the roar of the fall, until we came out on an open grassy bank in front of it, and so near that we were drenched by the spray.

From where we stood we could look up a long reach of the river, down which the stream comes foaming over a shallow bed, thrown up in jets of spray, like the rapids at Niagara. At the brink the stream is compressed, and tumbles over in two horseshoe-shaped falls, divided in the middle by a perpendicular chimney-like mass of rock some feet square, the upper part of which has been partly turned round on its base. The entire height of the fall is about one hundred and thirty feet, but somewhat filled up by fragments from above. Its breadth is about a hundred and fifty yards.

The rock is clay-slate, the strata dipping two or three degrees southward, that is, from the fall. Just above the pitch, the slate is broken into very regular steps, and the same structure is visible in the face of the cascade itself, particularly on the right, from the broken water

where they project. On the other side, where the descending sheet is less broken, the rich umber color of the stream tinges the foam half-way down.

The name Kakabeka was explained by some of the men to mean "straight down:" i. e., falls par excellence, it being the most considerable waterfall in this region.

In the afternoon our friends of the "Dancing Feather," who had determined to return to the Sault by way of the south shore, made haste to depart, as we had appointed the 15th of August to meet at the Sault, and they had much the longer way to go. Mr. Mackenzie left us at the same time.

The Professor this afternoon invited some of us to make the attempt with him to push up the stream as far as a small island at the foot of the Falls, in order to see them from below. For a short distance we got along very well, taking advantage of a counter-current near the opposite bank. Soon, however, this assistance failed us, and we were exposed to the full strength of the stream. For a moment or so with all the men could do we could only hold our own, and then began to go astern, but Jean Ba'tiste caught the branch of a tree and checked the boat, and then jumping into the water actually dragged her along, the rest straining their utmost with the setting poles. The stream here was shallow, and hurried along with great force, eddying and spouting into the air over the stones with which the bottom is covered. For a moment or two it was a fair struggle between muscle and the force of gravitation; then we got under the lee of the island, and without farther difficulty landed on the lower end. The island consists merely of a heap of large angular stones, with a tuft of bushes in the middle.

At the upper end we sat down on the rocks, with the falling hill of water directly in front of us, its outline against the sky. Our position was a favorable one for feeling the full force of the mass of water, but did not command the whole of the fall, each side being partially hidden by the projecting cliff. Indeed there is no position from which the whole can be taken in at once.

The distinguishing feature of these falls is variety. In the first place each of the two side-falls has worn out for itself a deep semicircular chasm, which, with the foot of the cliff projecting from below,