184 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



group. In breaking clown, the shales produce a cold, 

 clayey, retentive soil, much less favourable for agricultural 

 purposes than the " birds'-eye" and other limestones which 

 crop out nearer the shores of the lake. * 



With respect to the northern slope of the St. Lawrence 

 valley, a reference to the map will show that the brim of 

 the basin, where its feeding streams have their source, is 

 generally about 150 geographical miles from the centre of 

 the lake-way from Ontario upwards, and considerably 

 further off from the river channel lower down. The bays 

 of the great lakes, in many places, curtail the breadth of 

 the slope ; and it is every where exceeded in breadth by 

 the northern slope towards Lake Winipeg, James's Bay, 

 and Hudson's Straits. It will also be perceived that the 

 valley, with reference to its northern bank, makes an acute 

 bend, of which the west end of Lake Erie forms the elbow ; 

 the lower or eastern arm being parallel to the Alleghany 

 range, while the upper one takes more the direction of the 

 axis of the Rocky Mountains. The angular form of the 

 basin is in conformity with the course of the primitive 

 rocks from Labrador to Lake Superior, where they blend 

 with the " intermediate belt." f The general level of the 



* During our voyage through Lake Champlain, I was informed by 

 a fellow-passenger that the agriculture of Vermont was very superior, 

 especially near Burlington, where there are many large orchards, and 

 sheep farming is extensively pursued. Cleared land, he told me, sells 

 currently at forty dollars (8/.) an acre, and fifty dollars are thought 

 to be a high price. Two hundred acres form a good-sized farm in 

 the opinion of the neighboui'hood, and eighteen hundred acres a very 

 large property. Many steamers are constantly employed in summer 

 in visiting the various bays of the lake, and carrying the produce to 

 Whitehall, whence it is transferred by canal to the Hudson. 



-J- The whole belt from the Labrador coast, along the valley of the 

 St. Lawrence, and northwards to the Arctic Sea, seems to be a segment 

 of the border of a great basin of which Hudson's Bay is the centre, 

 and fragments of its eastern brim may be found on the shores of 

 Hudson's Straits, and in the islands to the north. 



