126 SIXTH REPORT — 183G. 



The whole northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico is low and 

 swampy, atid from the very gradual shoaling of the water, in- 

 approachable by ships, except at the mouths of rivers. The 

 coast preserves much the same character on the Atlantic side 

 up to Virginia, being almost everywhere skirted by low sandy 

 islands, inclosing extensive lagoons and winding channels, into 

 which mmierous large rivers open, and permit the access of 

 anadromous fish to the foot of AUeghanies. In the middle and 

 eastern districts of the United States the Atlantic plain is nar- 

 rowed by an incurvature of the coast and the extensive encroach- 

 ments of the Chesapeake, Delaware, and Long Island Sounds, 

 to whose muddy beaches vast numbers of water-fowl resort. A 

 nari'ow valley, having a direction of N. by E., runs from the last- 

 mentioned sound to join the transverse basin of the St. Law- 

 rence: it is occvipied on one side by the River Hudson and 

 on the other by Lake Champlain and the River Richelieu*. 



The British Atlantic territory is also deeply indented by the 

 Bay of Fundy, remarkable for the rise of its tides, and the extent 

 of its mud banks exposed at low water. The island of New- 

 foundland, viewed merely in reference to its physical geography, 

 appears as a prolongation of the coast line; in its animal pro- 

 ductions and vegetation it corresponds with the adjacent coast 

 of Labrador. Its surface, as vi^ell as that of New Brunswick, 

 Nova Scotia, and the northern part of the United States, is 

 considerably varied by hills. 



We have next to notice a great transverse valley, commencing 

 with the mediterranean sea or gulf of the St. Lawrence, con- 

 tinued first to the south-westward behind the AUeghanies in the 

 channel of the river St. Lawrence and basins of Lakes Erie 

 and Ontario, and afterwards more directly to the west by the 

 valleys of Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, from the 

 two latter of which there are communications by low tracts of 

 land with the great basin of the Mississippi. Canals have been 

 executed and more are projected in the Canadas and United 

 States for connecting the several systems of water communica- 

 tion, by means of which an interchange of fish from widely 

 diverging rivers will hereafter take place. 



The interior prairie lands lying to the northward of the great 

 Canada lakes have on their eastern boundary a well-wooded, 

 but swampy zone of nearly level limestone strata analogous to 

 the valley of the Mississippi in its general direction, and having 

 on or near its eastern border an almost continuous water-course, 



• A. recent traveller states that the only instances of tidal waters of sufficient 

 depth to carry large shijis crossing primitive mountain chains, are those of the 

 Hudson and St. Lawrence. T'ide Stuart's Three Years in America. 



