either by natural causes, or indolence to leave the woods, and Mountains and fly to this gran[d] Magazine of nature to Save their lives; and […] Some have been known to have died by famine before they could reach the Lake, which, on the north side is one continued chain of Mountains that extends for more than a hundred and fifty miles in length, and almost many of them perpendicular above the water on their surfaces the greattest sterility prevails, as hardly a shrub or tree are to be seen on their rugged tops[.] On the opposite side of the lake the face of Nature bears quite a different appearance; instead of gloomy desolated hills, nothing but Sand is to be seen, and the country generally flat and full of marshes, which appear to have detached from the lake as their is only a narrow dyke of sand that separates them, which seems to have been formed by the force of the Breakers during a series of storms with which the lake is often agitated to such a degree at times as to threaten a deluge over the lower parts of its boundaries, which lie very low. Beyond the influx of the aAthabasca River which is situated almost at the western extriemity of the lake, little or no curren[t] is discernible, but what is caused by the winds; and even When the waters of Peace River

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