Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/293

Rh The extensive conflagrations which have swept over a very considerable portion of the peninsula, have been the chief cause of the diminution in the numbers of the Indians, who once hunted in the midst of an abundance of animal life, to which former forests gave shelter.

From the summit of a hill near the head of Lake Nipisis, I had a fine opportunity of witnessing the desolation produced by these conflagrations. Towards the east a succession of lakes, studded with islands, lay in the valleys leading into the one partially occupied by Lake Nipisis; and an illimitable forest, with bare rocks rising out of it, was bounded only by the horizon in that direction; but north and north-west, as far as the eye could reach, lay a black and gloomy country, over which fire had passed many years ago. Myriads of boulders were strewed over the hills and in the valleys; and, weathering white, they formed a prominent feature in the black desert the fire had occasioned.

The rocks observed in the valley of the Moisie River belong to the Upper and Lower Divisions of what was formerly described by Sir William Logan as the Laurentian Series of Canada, but since divided by that distinguished geologist into two divisions, the Upper, termed provisionally the Labrador Series, and the Lower, or Laurentian Proper. Labrador rocks were first recognised at the mouth of Coldwater River, and it is probable that the mountain region of the “Top of the Ridge Range,” extending from the mouth of Coldwater River to Trout Lake, is made up of the rocks of this series.

The entire aspect of this region leads to the supposition that it has been moulded by the action of ice, and the valleys in which the rivers flow are probably those of ancient glaciers. The descriptions given by the few who have penetrated far into the interior of this country, tend to confirm the impression that it is a boulder-covered country from. Lake Mistassinni to Ungava Bay, at all levels higher than 800 or 1000 feet above the sea.

The most remarkable forms which vegetable life assumes on the Moisie, are those of mosses and lichens. Among the latter the “caribou moss,” as it is termed (Cladonia rangiferina), is the most widely distributed, and is probably the most important, as constituting the chief food of the reindeer, or caribou. It is however, remarkable that this lichen was more frequently observed on the gneiss of the Laurentian Series, than on Labradorite rocks; while on the other hand, the presence of a luxuriant forest of spruces and white birch always indicated the proximity of rocks