We were awaked in our encampment, between four and five o'clock, the next morning, by a shower of rain. Jumping up, and taking our customary meal of jerked beef and biscuit, we now followed our guides, with alacrity, over a dry and uneven surface, towards Sandy Lake. We had now been three days in accomplishing the traverse over this broad and elevated, yet sphagnous summit, separating the valley of the St. Louis of Lake Superior from that of the Upper Mississippi. As we approached the basin of Sandy Lake, we passed over several sandy ridges, bearing the white and yellow pine; the surface and its depressions bearing the wild cherry, poplar, hazel, ledum latifolia, and other usual growth and shrubs of the latitude. On the dry sandy tracts the uva ursi, or kinnikinnik of the Indians, was noticed. In the mineral constitution of the ridges themselves, the geologist recognizes that wide-spreading drift-stratum, with boulders and pebbles of sienitic and hornblende, quartz, and sandstone rock, which is so prevalent in the region. As we approached the lake we ascended one of those sandy ridges which surround it, and dashing our way through the dense underbrush, were gratified on gaining its apex to behold the sylvan shores and islands of the lake, with the trading-post and flag, seen dimly in the distance. The view is preserved in the following outlines, taken on the spot. [Illustration: Sandy Lake, from an eminence north of the mouth of the West Creek of the Portage of Savannah. 15th July, 1820.] I asked Chamees the Indian name of this lake. He replied, Ka-metong-aug-e-maug. This is one of those compound terms, in their languages, of which the particle _ka_ is affirmative. Metongaug, is the plural form of sandy lake. Maug is the plural form of water, corresponding, by the usual grammatical duality of meaning, to the plural form of the noun. The word might, perhaps, be adopted in the form of Kametonga.