104 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXII. 



valleys at several places, but the southern escarp- 

 ment is a continuous and imposing feature, rising in 

 places to a height of 1 ,000 feet above the river. 



Except perhaps from the top of Mount McKay 

 near Fort William there is not a more spacious view 

 to be obtained anywhere in Ontario as that from the 

 high points of the ridges south of Eganville along 

 which the Opeongo road runs. From any of these 

 points the broad trough of the Bonnechere with its 

 large lakes is seen in the foreground ; beyond this are 

 the ridges between the Bonnechere and Muskrat lake 

 valley, then the ridges between Muskrat lake and 

 the Ottawa valley, beyond which is seen the great 

 escarpment of the Laurentian highlands of Quebec 

 45 miles away. (See fig. 2.) 



Renfrew, the largest town in the Ottawa valley 

 had its beginning in circumstances connected with 

 the lumber industry in 1820. The reader is referred 

 to "The Story of Renfrew", by Mr. W. E. Small- 

 piece, for details concerning the early settlement and 

 history. Only a few references bearing on the 

 particular phase of the development we are con- 

 sidering will be given. "Before 1833, Captain Bell 

 started a mill at Castleford, better known as First 

 Chute. This mill was never a success as it was a 

 difficult place to maintain a dam. In 1834, Messrs. 

 Miller and Carmichael built a grist mill on a little 

 dam on Hurd creek now known as Smith creek. 

 This mill did a thriving business until the establish- 

 ment of the McDougall mill at the Second chute. 





F.gl 



Fig. 2 



Fig 1. Map of a portion of Renfrew county, siiowing the Bonnecliere river, and its connection 



witli tlie Ottawa. 

 Fig. 2. Section from southwe.'^t to nortliwest acros.s tlie Bonnecliere and Ottawa valleys. 



Occasional patches of paleozoic rock, principally 

 limestones and shales, extend up almost to Golden 

 lake, but the rocks on which these were laid down, 

 such as granite gneisses or other igneous rocks, are 

 the ones mostly seen. Bedrock of any kind, how- 

 ever, is seldom observed in the broad valley bottom 

 as there is a great thickness of sandy and stony 

 drift over its whole length and on top of these in 

 the lower portion of the valley is a thick layer of 

 stoneless marine clay, except where isolated ridges 

 of bedrock rise above the clay level. 



The oldest and youngest rocks in the world may 

 be seen in contact at the first chute, near Castleford, 

 where the marine clay of late Pleistocene age rests 

 on contorted Grenville limestone. 



now the falls of the Bonnechere in Renfrew town. 

 Before these mills were built the pioneer settlers in 

 the neighborhood had to go to Prendergrasts, on the 

 Quebec side of the Ottawa river with their grists." 



The principal business during the early develop- 

 ment of Renfrew was mainly concerned with lum- 

 bering. "To be a lumberman in those days was the 

 supremest height to which business ambition could 

 aspire. The small boys of that day played lumber- 

 men with the same zest and earnestness that the 

 small boy of modern times played circus or railway 

 contractor." 



The Opeongo road which leads from Renfrew 

 westward up the Bonnechere valley and over the 

 southern escarpment to the upper waters of the 



