•' 



On the Transition Rocks of the Cataragui. 237 



cup shaped sockets at every foot or eighteen inches ; their number 

 of sides varying from pentagonal to the hexagon, heptagon and octa- 

 gon, whilst their height reaches to twenty five feet, at one place, 

 where they support an enormous roof or cap of amorphous basalt fifty 

 feet in thickness, resembling an irregular fortification. 



The explored course of this basaltic formation was from east to 

 west, and the columns to the westward were of greater magnitude 

 than those to the eastward. 



That Canada has been subject to the influence of earthquakes, 

 there can be no doubt, not only from the configuration of the coun- 

 try, but from actual observation. 



The greatest convulsion on record, was that mentioned by the 

 Jesuits, as having occurred in 1663, which lasted six months, or 

 from January to July, overturning mountains, altering the course 

 of rivers, and rendering the mighty St. Lawrence white. Such an 

 event too, (probably,) from the direction that river takes, created its 

 present channel, and particularly on the Niagara Frontier, where 

 the mural precipices of sandstone and shale, seem to have been 

 formed by the rending of the rocks asunder into a vast longitudinal 

 fissure. 



At Mai Baie and the country adjacent, it appears that since 1663, 

 the inhabitants have noticed that a recurrence of this dreadful visit- 

 ation in its greatest vigor, occurs periodically once in twenty five 

 years, lasting about forty days at each return ; these exact periods 

 are probably not accurately defined. The greatest shocks felt of 

 late years, were in 1791, which date is however within the calcula- 

 tion, as it embraces the fifth quarter century from 1653. I had at 

 one time, thought that the phenomena of the dark days of Lower 

 Canada, miffht be ascribed to this influence, but the recorded dates 

 do not aoree, for 1785 and 1814 do not come within the quaVter cen- 

 turies, although neither are far from them. Charlevoix observes, 

 that it rained ashes for six hours at the mouth of the Saguenay in 

 1663, and there were such clouds of light dust, resembling smoke, 

 that an universal conflagration was dreaded. This looks as though 

 the grand outlet of the gases in the earthquake of 1663, was near 

 Mai Baie, where perhaps, or in Labrador, an active volcano will yet 

 be found. 



But well established as the circumstances connected with the Sa- 

 guenay country may ever be, in the case of the Lacustrian range 

 the outlets for the gases must be sought for either in the Rocky 



