The granitic conglomerates appear quite conclusive, one would think, of the results of fusion. The attraction of aggregation would seem inadequate to hold together such diverse masses. In these curious and striking masses we see the red feldspathic granite, black and shining hornblende rock, white fatty quartz, and striped jasper, held together as firmly, and polished by attrition as completely, as if they were--what they are not--the results of crystallization in this aggregate form. ERRATIC BLOCK GROUP.--Wherever, in fact, the geologist sets his foot, on the shores of the upper lakes, he finds himself on the great drift stratum, and cannot but revert to that era when waters, on a grander scale, swept over these plains, and the lakes played rampantly over wider areas.[221] [221] During a subsequent residence of eleven years at this point, the excavations made on both sides of the river, in digging wells, canals made by the military, &c., fully demonstrated the truth of this general observation. In these positions, it was evident that some greatly superior force of watery removal, such as does not now exist, had heaped together particles of similar matters, according to laws which govern moving, compacted masses of water, leaving clay to settle according to the laws of diffused clay, sand of sand, and pebbles and boulders of pebbles and boulders. In their change and redeposit, gravity has evidently been the primary cause, modified by compressed currents, attraction, and probably those secret and still undeveloped magnetic and electric influences which exist in connection with astronomical phenomena. That the earth's surface, "standing out of the water and in the water," has been disrupted and preyed upon by oceanic power, no one, at this day of geological illumination, will deny. BASIN OF LAKE SUPERIOR.--We entered this island sea as if by a kind of geological gate, in which the sandstone cliffs of Point Iroquois, on the one hand, stand opposite to the granitical hills of Gross Cape on the other.