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 {167} 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.
[Footnote 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.
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.
[Footnote 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 {168} 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.