REPORT BY GEORGE M. DAWSON. 25

a rendezvous for the natives, the site of an old establishment of the
Hudson Bay Company being visible near at hand. The trail now
described was that followed by Sir Alexander Mackenzie when on hig
way to the sea, the name obtained by him for the natives of the
locality being Sloua-cuss-Dinais. There were at the time of his visit
two houses at the upper end of the first lake, which, as he says,’
“occupied a most delightful situation.”

On leaving the upper end of the second lake the country is found to
change for the worse. Broken fragments of basalt strew the surface in
many places, and dry sandy and stony soil alternates with swamps. In
three miles, the Cush-ya River of the maps (Tsan-tsed-a-ko of the Indians)
is reached. On June 16th it was estimated to average fifteen feet in
width by two feet deep, with a swift current. ‘To the south, at a short
distance, the northern front of the basaltic plateau appears as a low
broken cliff of columnar basalt; it runs south-westward for some dis-
tance from this point, and was noted by Sir A. Mackenzie as a “high,
rocky ridge” 7 stretching along on the left. The country traversed
by the trail from this place to the Third Crossing of the Blackwater,
may, in fact, be considered as a region forming the broken and more or
less denuded border intervening between the northern edge of the
volcanic plateau and the Blackwater River. Older rocks are, however,
seen at the surface in a few places. The trail follows, for about three
miles, the south shore of Tsa-cha} Lake, crossing three streams. The
first and largest of these had an estimated volume of ten feet by two
feet, with a slope of about one in ten. Here the old C. P. R. Survey
trail to Chizicut Lake turns off, and about a mile up the stream rocks
of the Tertiary lignite formation are seen below the basalts, though with-
out any visible lignite coal. The north side of Tsa-cha Lake, which is
one of the expansions in the Blackwater River, is partly open and
_ grassed, with light groves of poplar, spruce and pine, rising at a short
‘distance into broken rocky hills.

Kight miles further on is Tse-tzi Lake, nearly a mile long, and with
low basaltic cliffs on its south-eastern side; and a short distance further
on Klootch-oot-a Lake, nearly a mile and a-half long, and discharging into
the former, is reached, Between the two lakes, the Indian trail to Bella
Coola or Bentinck Arm turns off, and will subsequently be noticed. Here
again are afew Indian houses, and some swampy meadows of considerable

* “ Voyages from.Montreal on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of America, to the
Frozen and Pacific Oceans.” London: 1801. Page 298. t Op. cit., page 300.

{ The name meaning great stone, or mountain, and referring to the rocky hill on its north bank,
is changed to Thracha on some maps.

Upper part of
Blackwater
River.

Lakes.