General Description of Lake Erie, 359 



tvater in common use is heated, and ill tasted. Moskitoes, 

 sand, and black flies abound, and, extending their attacks to 

 the domestic animals, aided by a fly nearly an inch long, almost 

 drive them distracted. There are circumstances also, in social 

 life, which render this region a disagreeable residence, but 

 which are gradually disappearing. Its extreme fertility, the 

 moderate sum of its annual heat, and its facilities of commu- 

 nication with other countries, will, in progress of time, render it 

 the seat of a dense population, and a principal granary of the 

 western continent. Wheat, maize, and tobacco, are cultivated 

 with equal success. The returns of the agriculturist are large, 

 secure, and of excellent quality. The last-named article has 

 been grown in considerable quantity about the river Detroit, 

 near the head of the lake, and favoured, in a small remission of 

 duty, by the British Government, is sent to England, after 

 having undergone an inland carriage, to Quebec^ of 814 miles. 

 Salt springs exist in almost every township, accompanied, in 

 one or two cases, by large beds of gypsum. Bog iron ore is 

 common on the north-east side of the lake, and is worked. 

 The water communications of these countries are astonishingly 

 easy. Canoes can go from Quebec to the Rocky Mountains, 

 to the Arctic Circle, or to the Mexican Gulf, without a portage 

 longer than four miles; and the traveller shall arrive at his 

 journey's end as fresh and as safely as from an English tour of 

 pleasure. It is common for the Erie steam-boat to take goods 

 and passengers from Buffaloe, to Green Bay and Chicago, in 

 Lake Michigan, a distance of nearly 900 miles, touching, at 

 the same time, at many intermediate ports. In about three 

 years, in addition to the canal connecting Lake Erie with tide- 

 water in the Hudson, another will be excavated across the 

 southern dividing ridge, to communicate with the Ohio. Near 

 its place of junction with this river, a canal from the Atlantic, 

 across the Alleghanies, will enter the Ohio. Lake Erie will 

 then also have a steady line of water transport to Baltirnore, on 

 the Chesapeake, and New Orleans, on the Mississippi. The 

 surveys, preparatory to these projects, have been in execution 

 for two years; there is no doubt of their practicability. 



I cannot even hazard a conjecture as to the number of inha- 

 bitants around Lake Erie, They are numerous, and daily 



