﻿496 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



It is described in the Jesuit Relations, 1 and in spite of the apparent exag- 

 geration and superstition there seems to have been wrought widespread geo- 

 logical changes, many times greater than would have been needed to load 

 th" glaciers with their rocky burden. The following quotations will serve 

 to show the severity of the disturbance which continued from February until 

 August. 



" On the fifth of February, 1663, toward half past five in the evening, a 

 loud roaring was heard at the same time throughout the length and breadth 

 of Canadas." 



" According to the report of many of our Frenchmen and Savages, who 

 were eye-witnesses, far up on our River, the Three Rivers, five or six leagues 

 from here, the banks bordering the Stream on each side, and formerly of 

 a prodigious height, were leveled— being removed from their foundations, 

 and uprooted to the water's level. These two mountains, with all their 

 forests, thus overturned into the River, formed there a mighty dike which 

 forced that stream to change its bed, and to spread over great plains recently 

 discovered." 



" New Lakes are seen where there were none before ; certain Mountains 

 are seen no more, having been swallowed up ; a number of rapids have been 

 leveled, a number of Rivers have disappeared ; the Earth was rent in many 

 places, and it has opened chasms whose depths cannot be sounded." 



" On level ground, hills have arisen ; Mountains, on the other hand, have 

 been depressed and flattened. Chasms of wonderful depth, exhaling a foul 

 stench, have been hollowed out in many places. Plains lie open, far and 

 wide, where there were formerly very dense and lofty forests. Cliffs, al- 

 though not quite leveled with the soil, have been shattered and overturned." 



1 Thwaite's Translations, Vol. xlvii ; pp. 37-57 : 183-223. 



