igoi] Ells — Ancient Channels. 17 



ANCIENT CHANNELS OF THE OTTAWA RIVER. 



By R. W. Ells, LL.D., F.R.S.C. 

 The Ottawa may well be reg-atded as one of the great historic 

 rivers of Canada. For hundreds of years it formed the favourite 

 means of communication between the Indian tribes of the west and 

 those of the east. It was ascended by Champlain in 1615. At 

 that early date he crossed the height of land at Lake Nipissing, 

 and was presumably the first white man to gaze upon the vast 

 expanse of our inland seas. 



Following the advent of this great explorer, this river became 

 the chosen route of the voyageurs on their way inland to the great 

 unexplored country of the western plains. On the coming of the 

 Hudson Bay Company it formed the principal channel for carrying 

 on their immense business, their brigades of boats and canoes 

 passing year by year, carrying eastward the annual harvest of furs 

 and bearing westward into the wilds of our vast interior the 

 various kinds of merchandise suitable to the trade with the 

 savages of the great west. Later, by means of steamboats on 

 the deep stretches and by portages round the falls and heavy 

 rapids, it formed the chief means of communication between the 

 east and the numerous settlers who were scattered along its 

 route. 



The river itself is of very ancient date. When the continent 

 was young, its valley was outlined, and for countless centuries the 

 drainage of a large part of eastern and northern America followed 

 approximately the present course. In support of this statement it 

 may be said that along the present channel of the stream, ex- 

 tensive deposits of the oldest Palaeozoic formations ot this part of 

 Canada are found, ranging from the base of the Potsdam sandstone 

 upward into the Silurian, comprising many hundreds of feet of 

 strata, the greater portion ot which, over many thousands of 

 square miles, has long since been removed by the various pro- 

 cesses of denudation. 



The finding of these formations at many points in the bed 

 of the present channel shews that, before they were deposited, the 

 granite and gneiss hills were formed and the principal river channels 



