[ELLS & BARLOW] * PROPOSED OTTAWA CANAL 165 
rivers and lake expansions along the route proposed may be of general 
importance, since it presents, in a form readily available for reference, a 
mass of facts obtained not only from the earlier reports of the engineers 
who made the surveys but from careful personal examination as well. 
This, it is hoped, will render the discussion of the subject on any future 
occasion much more intelligible. 
The total distance by the route proposed between Montreal and the 
waters of Lake Huron at the mouth of the French River is given by Mr. 
Clarke as only 430% miles, and this may, for convenience of description, be 
divided into two sections, viz., 1st, that along the Ottawa River itself 
from Montreal to the mouth of the Mattawa, a distance of 308 miles, and, 
2nd, that along the Mattawa, Lake Nipissing and the French River, in 
all 122? miles. 
Along the lower or Ottawa River section those portions of the system 
necessary to establish continuous communication between the cities of 
Montreal and Ottawa were completed nearly seventy years ago, and have 
ever since been regularly used in connection with the Ottawa and Kings- 
ton canal system. In this section is included the Lachine Canal, which 
was constructed to overcome the fall in the St. Lawrence above the city 
of Montreal known as the Lachine Rapids, in which the waters of the 
river have a descent of forty-four feet ; 2nd, the Ste. Anne lock, near 
the junction of the Ottawa waters with those of the St. Lawrence, the 
fall here being only three feet, and the Carillon and Grenville canals, the 
improvements here extending over a distance of twelve miles and over- 
coming a total fall in the Ottawa River of fifty feet. The intermediate 
spaces, known as Lake St. Louis, Lake of the Two Mountains, and the 
long stretch of fifty-four miles between the head of the Grenville Canal 
and the foot of the Rideau Canal at Ottawa, have little or no current, and 
present no obstacles to navigation. The completion of these portions, 
therefore, has solved the practicability of the scheme for the first 116 
miles of the distance. 
No attempt has yet been made to overcome the interruption caused 
by the Chaudière Falls and the rapids above, where, in a distance of six 
miles, the waters of the Ottawa have a total descent of sixty-seven feet ; 
but at the Chats Falls, which is the next obstruction at the head of the 
Lake Deschénes, twenty-eight miles further west, an attempt was made 
some years ago to overcome the barrier to continuous navigation there 
presented by the construction of a canal along the north bank of the 
stream. The total fall in the river at this place is fifty feet, the broken 
waters extending for quite three miles; but though a considerable amount 
of money was expended and excavations made along a considerable por- 
tion of the necessary distance, the project was never completed. 
Passing the Chats Rapids, steamboat communication is continuous to 
the village of Portage du Fort at certain stages of water, the only diff- 
