61. They were now, perhaps, two miles below Portage du Fort, at the point on the Ottawa nearest to the system of lakes through which they were to pass, and where, as stated in the text, the Ottawa, making an angle, begins to flow directly from the north. The latitude, as here given, is even more than usually incorrect, being too high by more than a degree. The true latitude is about 43 deg. 37'. _Vide Walker_ and _Miles's Atlas of Dominion of Canada_. Note 62 will explain the cause of this inexactness. 62. Muskrat Lake. On Champlain's map of 1632 will be seen laid down a succession of lakes or ponds, together with the larger one, now known as Muskrat Lake, on the borders of which are figured the dwellings of the savages referred to in the text. The pond which they passed is the last in the series before reaching Muskrat Lake. On the direct route between this pond and the lake, known as the Muskrat Portage road, the course undoubtedly traversed by Champlain, there was found in 1867, in the township of Ross, an astrolabe, an instrument used in taking latitudes, on which is the date, 1603. It is supposed to have been lost by Champlain on his present expedition. The reasons for this supposition have been stated in several brochures recently issued, one by Mr. O. H. Marshall of Buffalo, entitled _Discovery of an Astrolabe supposed to have been left by Champlain in 1613_, New York, 1879; reprinted from the _Magazine of American History_ for March of that year. Another, _Champlain's Astrolabe lost on the 7th of June, 1613, and found in August, 1867_, by A. J Russell of Ottawa, Montreal, 1879. And a third entitled _The Astrolabe of Samuel Champlain and Geoffrey Chaucer_, by Henry Scadding, D.D., of Toronto, 1880. All of these writers agree in the opinion that the instrument was probably lost by Champlain on his expedition up the Ottawa in 1613. For the argument _in extenso_ the reader is referred to the brochures above cited. [Illustration of an astrolabe.] Mr. Russell, who examined the astrolabe thus found with great care and had it photographed, describes it as a circular plate having a diameter of five inches and five eighths. "It is of place brass, very dark with age, one eighth of an inch thick above, increasing to six sixteenths of an inch below, to give it steadiness when suspended, which apparently was intended to be increased by hanging a weight on the little projecting ring at the bottom of it, in using it on ship-board. Its suspending ring is attached by a double hinge of the nature of a universal joint. Its circle is divided into single degrees, graduated from its perpendicular of suspension. The double-bladed index, the pivot of which passes through the centre of the astrolabe, has slits and eyelets in the projecting fights that are on it."