Before quitting this spot, it may be well to say, that the geology of the country had again changed. Portage Lake lies, in fact, in the direction of the great copper-bearing trap dyke. This dyke, estimating from the end of the peninsula, extends nearly southwest and northeast, probably seventy miles, with a breadth of ten miles. It is overlaid by rubblestone and amygdaloid, which latter, by disintegration, yields the agates, carnelians, and other silicious, and some sparry crystalline minerals, for which the central shores of Lake Superior are remarkable. Nearly every part of this broad and extensive dyke which has been examined, yields veins, and masses of native copper, or copper ores.
The word was, when we had pushed our canoes into the quagmire, that each of the gentlemen of the party was to carry his own personal baggage across the portage. This was an awkward business for most of us. The distance was but two thousand yards, but little over a mile, across elevated open grounds. I strapped my trunk to my shoulders, and walked myself out of breath in getting clear of the brushy part of the way, till reaching the end of the first _pause_, or resting-place. Here I met the Governor (Cass), who facetiously said: "You see I am carrying _two_ pieces," alluding to his canoe slippers, which he held in his hands. "A _piece_," in the trade, is the back load of the _engagee_.
On reaching the termination of the second "pause," or rest, we found ourselves on a very elevated part of the shore of Lake Superior. The view was limitless, the horizon only bounding the prospect. The waves rolled in long and furious swells from the west. To embark was impossible, if we had had our baggage all brought up, which was not the case. The day was quite spent before the transportation was completed. This delay gave us an opportunity to ramble about, and examine the shore. In a boulder of serpentine rock, I found an imbedded mass of native copper, of two pounds' weight. On breaking the stone, it proved to be bound together by thin filaments of this metal. Small water-worn fragments of chalcedony, agate, carnelian, and other species of the quartz family were found strewn along the beach, together with fragments of zeolite. Masses of the two former minerals were also found imbedded in amygdaloid and trap-rock, thus denoting the parent beds of rock. In the zeal which these little discoveries excited on the subject of mineralogy, the Chippewa, Ottowa, and Shawnee Indians attached to the expedition participated, and as soon as they were made acquainted with the objects sought, they became successful explorers. They had noticed my devotion to the topic, from the time of our passing the Islands of Shawangunk, Michilimackinac, and Flat-rock Point, in the basin of Lake Huron, where organic forms were chiselled from the rock; and bestowed on me the name of Paguäbëkiegä.[47]