Statistical Account of Upper Canada. S 



second joint of the fore finger, which seemed to have been 

 accidentally broken off. The traders on the river St. Peter's, 

 Mississippi, report that some of them have seen in the pos- 

 session of the Indians a petrified child, which they have 

 often wished to purchase ; but the savages regard it as a 

 deity, and no inducement could bribe them to part with it. 

 Besides the natural curiosities there are others of a descrip- 

 tion more calculated to excite interest and reflection. These 

 are the ruins of antient fortresses, which appear to have been 

 the work of a race different from the present Indians, who 

 possess no tradition concerning their origin, nor seem to 

 entertain any opinion respecting their use, or of those by 

 whom they were constructed. They are regularly formed, 

 and generally built where a ravine or high bank naturally 

 strengthens the one side. The walls are of earth, and at 

 present may be about four or five feet in height. At one 

 time they must have been much higher, for trees of the 

 very largest size are now growing on the mounds. A con- 

 tinued barrier of these works extends from the northern side 

 of Lake Ontario towards the river district, and across to the 

 vast plains which reach to the Mississippi. It may also be 

 mentioned in this place as rather a curious fact, that al- 

 though Lower Canada is greatly infested with rats, none 

 have ever been seen above the falls of Niagara. 



Lakes. — ^The great lakes have been long gradually de- 

 creasing; and in the course of nine years, the period of 

 Mr. Gilkison's residence at Amherstburgh, the waters have 

 fallen nearly two feet perpendicularly. As the discharge at 

 Niagara must in consequence be reduced, the allegations of 

 those travellers respecting the time requisite for wearing the 

 passage of the river there, cannot be correctly founded. It 

 ^ is highly probable that the discharge of the cataract was for- 

 merly much greater than it is at present, and the force of 

 the water in mouldering the rock of course more effectual. 

 The long period which in the opinion of those travellers the 

 waters must have taken to form the chasm at the falls, is 

 therefore at least doubtful. The issue from Lake Superior 

 and the upper lakes into Ontario, independent of local 

 Streams and springs, is much greater than the discharge at 

 A3 Niagara j 



