94 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXII. 



Almonte, Arnprior and Renfrew, as well as Ottawa. 

 The first portion of the road was, therefore, built 

 northward to Smiths Falls and from this point lines 

 were extended both east and north to reach their 

 objective stations. A branch line was also built 

 westward from Smiths Falls to Perth about the 

 year 1850. 



Later on, the Ontario and Quebec railway pro- 

 jected from Toronto to Montreal acquired that por- 

 tion of the line between Perth and Ottawa, and 

 finally the whole became part of the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway system. Smiths Falls was made a 

 divisional point in the system, and a location for 

 railway car works and so became a place of resi- 

 dence for a considerable number of railway 

 employees. 



A point like this on a navigable waterway and 

 with such good railway connections had considerable 

 advantages for manufacturing purposes as the 

 various industries could assemble raw materials and 

 distribute finished products with ease; and we find 

 that several manufacturing firms availed themselves 

 of these facilities. 



It would appear then that Smiths Falls owes its 

 development as a centre of population more to rail- 

 way and manufacturing influences than it does to 

 farming. 



The town of Perth is built on the Tay river, the 

 largest tributary of the Rideau river. It is situated 

 on the Canadian Pacific Railway about eleven miles 

 west of Smiths Falls. 



The town site and surrounding country was occu- 

 pied by settlers, principally made up of soldiers from 

 regiments disbanded at the close of the Napoleonic 

 wars. These were offered a free passage, 100 acres 

 of land, some farming implements and a limited 

 amount of rations by the British Government if they 

 would locate in Canada instead of the United States 

 where so many were going at that time. The town- 

 ships of Bathurst, Drummond, and Beckwith were 

 surveyed wiih this object in view and the first com- 

 pany of settlers arrived in 1816. A site for a village 

 was chosen which would be a centre for the com- 

 munity and doubtless the factor which determined 

 this site was the waterfall on the Tay river where a 

 saw mill and grist mill could be erected later on. 

 The settlers who chose to locate in this district were 

 especially fortunate as most of the land carried a 

 deep fertile soil and in time it became one of the 

 best agricultural districts in the Ottawa valley. The 

 farms along the Scotch Line road for about six 

 miles out of Perth in a southwesterly direction are 

 especially productive and the appearance of the 

 dwellings and farm buildings are visible evidence of 

 prosperity. 



The Perth district is on the boundary between the 

 hilly country underlain by granite gneisses and other 

 crystalline rocks and the nearly level valley plain 

 which is floored with sandstones and dolomites. 



The granitic rocks are mostly covered with a 

 fairly thick sheet of boulder clay, so that glaciation 

 seems to have improved this district for agricultural 

 purposes at the expense of the district further east 

 where the soils are very thin. The movement of 

 glacial ice in this region was from northeast to 

 southwest. The boulder clay left from the glacial 

 ice did not reach very far to the west of Perth and 

 an almost barren region as far as agriculture is 

 concerned is encountered beyond the clay limits, 

 and we do not find another point of importance on 

 the railway line until coming to Peterboro a dis- 

 tance of 120 miles, where clays and limestones be- 

 gin again. 



Perth has developed a stone architecture that 

 gives a certain distinction to the town, on account 

 of the opportunity offered by the beds of sandstone 

 in its immediate vicinity which are easily quarried 

 and make a good enduring building stone. This 

 sandstone formation furnishes two varieties, a white 

 or light grey stone and a mottled pink and grey 

 stone. The Anglican church is a good example of 

 the use of the white stone as well as being one of the 

 best pieces of Gothic architecture in any of the 

 towns of the region. The C.P.R. station is an 

 example of the use of the mottled stone. Besides its 

 local use these building stones have been quarried 

 and shipped to outside points, some of it going as 

 far as Montreal, the canal connection to Perth 

 making it economical to ship heavy cheap material 

 such as stone. There was considerable mining 

 activity in the past in the neighborhood of Perth 

 particularly in the township of North Burgess, 

 which assisted to some extent in its development as a 

 centre. Mica, phosphate, and iron were the prin- 

 cipal minerals that were mined in this locality. 



Several of the residences in Perth were built by 

 farmers of sufficient means who desired the social 

 advantages offered by the town for the remainder 

 of their years, leaving the business of farming to be 

 carried on by the next generation. 



Of late years the town has been augmented by 

 various industries which include woolen mills, 

 chemical and drug and soap works, and a shoe 

 factory, but this was after it had attained a con- 

 siderable growth due to the productivity of the sur- 

 rounding land. 



MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND TRIBUTARIES. 



The Mississippi river drains a perfect maze of 



lakes situated in the Laurentian upland in Frontenac 



and Addington counties. A reference to the map 



will show the curious course the river takes after it 



