84 Dr. Bigsby's Sketch of the Topography 



merous in the space of sixteen miles included between a point 

 two miles and a half below Gananoqiie, and another, twenty- 

 two miles above Brockville. The interval appropriately named 

 " the Lake of the Thousand Islands," extends fromGananoque 

 to within thirteen miles of Brockville. Its scenery has been 

 depicted by Howison in his Sketches of Upper Canada a good 

 deal too floridly, and in a way calculated to disappoint its 

 visitors. It must, however, be admitted, that all that can be 

 effected by ever changing combinations of isle and mainland 

 moderately high, of rocks, woods and waters, unrelieved by 

 hills in the distance, is done in a manner singularly beautiful. 



The first fourteen miles from Kingston are almost wholly 

 occupied by two very large islands, Long, Grand, or "Wolfe, 

 and Howe or Sir John Johnstone's Islands. 



Grand Island, containing 31,283 acres*, is 17| miles long 

 in a north-east direction, and has its upper end (called Long 

 Point) 5i miles above Kingston. It is an irregular oblong, 

 broad in its upper half (6§ miles wide at Kingston), and has a 

 mean breadth of about a mile below Carleton Bay, a deep 

 swampy indenture near the middle. Its point of nearest ap- 

 proach to the north main is 3 miles below Point Henry, and 

 is a mile distant. That on the south main being f of a mile, and 

 situated a mile and two-thirds below Long Point above spoken 

 of. The nearest part of the island is two miles distant from 

 Kingston. It has been awarded to the British, to whom, in 

 fact, it is indispensably necessary for the protection of their naval 

 and military establishments on Lake Ontario. Its interior is 

 nearly in a state of nature. It is fertile, level, low, and often 

 swampy. 



Howe Island, fertile and undulatory, is 8f miles long, with an 

 average width of If mile. It is separated from the north main 

 by a channel of pretty uniform breadth, which sometimes is 

 only \ of a mile. It is nearest Grand Island (with which it 

 runs more or less parallel) at the upper end, and is there f of 

 a mile from it. The head of Howe Island is 5i miles below 

 Fort Henry. 



These two islands have but few others around them. Of 

 these the largest are Simcoe Island, at the head, and on the 

 north of Grand Island, and Carleton Island on its south, op- 

 posite to the bay of that name. Simcoe Island is 3f miles long 

 and a mile and a third in greatest breadth. Carleton Island 

 is 2^ miles long, with a mean breadth of two-thirds of a mile. 



Proceeding now below Grand Island, the next of great size, 

 is the compact " Grindstone" Island, 5§ miles long by a mean 



* According to Messrs. Thompson and Bird, astronomers. 



width 



