November, 1918] 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



95 



issues from the upland. Instead of continuing to 

 flow eastward and becoming a tributary of the 

 Rideau river it actually flows toward the northwest 

 and enters the Ottawa river about four miles below 

 the mouth of the Madawaska river where the town 

 of Arnprior is situated. The erratic course taken 

 by the Mississippi river is owmg to its entering a 

 pre-glacial depression which existed almost along 

 the contact of the Paleozoic rocks of the Ottawa 

 valley plain and the granitic rocks of the upland and 

 which lay nearly at right angles to the course of the 

 upper part of the river. In thus shortening its course 

 the river had to drop a vertical height of 200 feet in 

 a distance of 25 miles in reaching- the Ottawa. It 

 accomplishes this by a series of falls between com- 

 paratively still stretches of water. The towns and 

 villages of Galetta, Pakenham, Almonte, Appleton, 

 and Carleton Place, named in order from the mouth 

 of the river up are situated on these falls. 



One of the principal features of the trough occu- 

 pied by the lower porton of the Mississippi river is 

 the large lake known as Mississippi lake. One of 

 the first white settlers in 1823 wrote that "some of 

 the islands of this lake were inhabited by Indians 

 whose hunting ground is on the north side of the 

 lake and who are far from being pleased with the 

 encroachments our settlers are makng on their 

 territory." This lake is now a popular resort in the 

 summer for the people of Carleton Place and other 

 towns. 



The first railway line into the Ottawa valley pro- 

 jected from Brockville, Smiths Falls and thence to 

 Renfrew, follows the valley of the Mississippi river 

 and served all of the above points except Galetta 

 as the railway line diverges to Arnprior before 

 reaching that point. 



The marine stoneless clay is found in the valley 

 of the Mississippi river as a continuous sheet from 

 Almonte to Pakenham but is restricted to a narrow 

 strip owing to the proximity of the Laurentian 

 escarpment along the west and to low ridges of 

 Paleozoic limestone, whose flat tops are nearly bare 

 of soil, along the eastern side of the valley. The 

 Laurentian upland, however, just west of Almonte 

 does not prove such a barrier to cultivation as it 

 does at other parts of the region by reason of the 

 broad bands of crystalline limestone occurring here 

 which carry productive soils. The surrounding 

 diversified farming lands whose business is tributary 

 to Almonte as well as the woolen industry which is 

 established there contributed to the development of 

 this very picturesque village. 



In 1820, two brothers named Morphy located at 

 what is now known as Carleton Place but then as 

 Morphys Falls, and in the same year a Mr. Cole- 

 man purchased the waterpower at that point. The 



condition of the purchase was that within six months 

 after the date of sale a bushel of wheat should be 

 ground in the mill about to be erected. This was 

 the first mill on the road from Perth to Bytown 

 (O^awa). 



When the Canadian Pacific railway constructed 

 its transcontinental route it included part of the old 

 line from Brockville to Renfrew in the system. 

 The point at which the transcontinental line coming 

 from Montreal through Ottawa joins the old line is 

 at Carleton Place, which became a junction point. 

 A few industries took advantage of the transporta- 

 tion facilities offered at Carleton Place, but the 

 chief business is in supplying the needs of the sur- 

 rounding farming population. One of the minor 

 industries of Carleton Place is lime burning, the 

 stone used being the white crystalline limestone 

 which occurs in large masses a few miles west of 

 the town. The burned lime or quicklime is shipped 

 to many distan* points. 



The Clyde river is the principal tributary of the 

 Mississippi and lies wholly within the Laurentian 

 upland, in the county of Lanark. 



The Lanark settlement was an extension of the 

 Perth settlement to which reference has been made. 

 It was occupied by immigrants from the western part 

 of Scotland in 1820. An old record of this settle- 

 ment states that "the face of the country here is 

 more diversified with small hills than in the Perth 

 settlement but where the soil is not encumbered with 

 rocks it is equally good. In a convenient spot on 

 the banks of the river a village was laid out and a 

 government store erected. A saw mill and a grist 

 mill were erected soon after the village was laid 

 out, and timber being abundant in the neighbour- 

 hood, one inch board can be procured at six dollars 

 a thousand feet." 



The convenient spot was the falls on the Clyde 

 river about two miles above its junction with the 

 Mississippi. 



Although the village of Lanark draws its chief 

 business from a district situated wholly within the 

 area of Archean rocks and is the only village in the 

 region under discussion that does so, it should be 

 noted that a great deal of bedrock in this locality is 

 crystalline limestone and that the boulder clay sheet 

 covers most of these and the accompanying granite 

 rocks in the neighbourhood. At a distance of about 

 10 miles north or west of Lanark a rugged country 

 absolutely devoid of clay and with very little crys- 

 talline limestone is encountered where agriculture 

 ceases or becomes sporadic. 



The village of Lanark was long famous for the 

 excellence of the products of its woolen mills, but 

 these were accidentally destroyed by fire a short 

 time ago and the industry moved to Perth. 



