SOURCE OF ST. PETEr's RIVER. 5-7 



Marie by this route, are those given by Mr. Sclioolcraft 

 ill his Narrative Journal of Travels, &c. ut supra, p. 169, 

 204, 236, and 253. We might add several other routes ; 

 but the data which we have are not sufficient for us to 

 establish even estimates of the distances. The shortest 

 route from Lake Superior to tide water is not through the 

 St. Lawrence, but through Michipicotton Bay, Brunswick 

 and Moose rivers, &c. to Moose Factory on Janies' Bay ; 

 loaded canoes pass through in sixteen days ; the distance 

 cannot exceed eight hundred and fifty miles. It will soon 

 be used by the Hudson's Bay Company to the exclusion of 

 that at present travelled between Fort William and York 

 Factory. 



Several of the routes which we have enumerated can be 

 travelled at much shorter distances by wheels in summer, 

 or by sledges in winter. The object which we have had 

 in view is not to give exact distances, which, in the pre- 

 sent state of the country, is as unnecessary, as it would 

 prove impossible, but to show that direct water communi- 

 cations exist by various routes between the waters of the 

 Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Hudson's 

 Bay ; and that in this respect, North America presents per- 

 haps an unparalleled instance of direct water communica- 

 tions for thousands of miles. Some of these routes are, it 

 is true, very much obstructed by rapids and falls, which 

 occasion portages and lightening places. Still there can 

 be no doubt that, at a future period, new routes will be 

 discovered, or the old ones will be so much improved as 

 to admit of a comparatively easy communication with the 

 elevated plains which furnish the sources of Nelson's riVer, 

 Ihe St. La>vrcnce, and the Mississippi. 



