12 Dr. Bigsby's Sketch of the Topography 



Bay, altogether about eight miles across and two deep*. It 

 is in some measure land-locked by two large and some smaller 

 islands. For further details I refer to Darby, as before quoted, 

 and to Spafford's Gazetteer of the State of New York. Sackett's 

 Harbour village bears from Kingston S. by E. twenty-five 

 miles; but it is thirty-five miles distant by ship's course. 

 Other harbours for small vessels on this shore between Sackett's 

 and the River Genesee are Sodus and Oswego. The former 

 is a fine capacious basin, embayed by a ridge curving from 

 the western angle, and which almost suri'ounds the bay : the 

 latter is on the River Oswego, which has at its mouth a bar 

 over which large or heavily-laden vessels cannot pass. 



The rivers of Lake Ontario are not very numerous nor 

 large, with the exception of six. They issue from single lakes, 

 or chains of lakes. I shall only notice those which I have 

 visited myself, and which are referred-to in describing the 

 geology of the lake. 



The River Niagara will be treated of in a separate paper. 

 The stream nearest in its dimensions is the Trent, situated 

 rather more than three miles below the upper part of the Bay 

 of Quinte and on its north shore. Its main branch rises in 

 Rice Lake, a large and irregular body of water, connected 

 with others called the " Shallow Lakes," extending towards 

 Lake Simcoe. At the mouth of the Trent, Rice Lake is forty 

 miles distant. The Trent flows rapidly over a shallow rocky 

 and pebbly bottom, with many flexures, through a beautiful 

 country of steep ridges and luxuriant daJes,thickly interspersed 

 in the lower sixteen miles with hamlets, pasturage, and corn- 

 fields. It varies from fifty to two hundred yards in breadth, 

 and is about three hundred yards across at its mouth. I had 

 no opportunity of acquiring more accurate admeasurement. 

 The banks of alluvion usually skirting rivers ai'e here large 

 and high, particularly about the lower parts of the river. I ob- 

 served several low and woody islands in it. Between eighteen and 

 twenty-two miles from Lake Ontario it receives from the east 

 the Crow or Marmora River, on which, sixteen miles from the 

 Trent by the carriage road, are erected the large iron-works f 



of 



* This is merely taken from the common maps. 



t Tlie land about the works is rough and hilly. Although there are 

 several large terraces of naked limestone and ridges of primitive rocks, the 

 greater part of this tract is provided with a plentiful and well watered soil, 

 chiefly of red clay and calcareous loam. Its fertility is evinced by crops 

 which might excite the envy of the agriculturist of any nation. The River 

 Marmora just above the works is a hundred yards wide, and runs between 

 two parallel ridges 200 to 250 feet high, and at the works about 250 yards 

 apart ; the base of the one on the north being within a few feet of the 

 stream, while a flat, eightv-three yards broad, intervenes between it and the 



left 



