I 



St Maurice and Saguennt/, 223 



a float of clear rock, about sixty or seventy feet iu width, 

 glittering in the sun wilh a brilliant whiteness which 

 rivalled the purity of crystalline marble, and conspicuou?, 

 towering above the adjacent hills for a considerable dis- 

 tance. On approaching its base, Mr. Adams discovered it 

 to consist of pure white (juartz and felspar, the latter some- 

 what in a stale of decomposition ; it had all the apt>earance 

 of having formerly been the bed of a cascade, in which 

 case the uaters must have fallen from a height of at least 

 five hundred feet into the valley below, where are now 

 situated three lakes, St. Thomas, St. Vincent, and 

 William. Indeed the shores of many of the numerous 

 lakes and rivers in this part of the country, are composed 

 of rocky precipices or bluff head-lands, giving to the 

 scenery a degree of wildness peculiarly characteristic of 

 the mountain regions of Canada. Nor are these stupendous 

 precipices confined to the shores of lakes and rivers ; tliey 

 are found existing in various situations where water does 

 not occur in the dreary tract extending to the height 

 of land. 



Near the last great fork of the Jacques Cartier river, the 

 cuuiitry consists of a chain of ahnost inaccessable mountains 

 extending to the norlh-wer>t mid sweeping round until they 

 join that broken chain of conical shaped hills lying to the 

 norlhu'urd of Quebec ; and through whose passes, tradition 

 Miys, a road to lake St. John formerly existed. 



It ii> generally observed that the south-east sides of tiic 

 lakes and rivers situated in the higher parts of Stoneham, 

 are of sufierior (piality of soil and less elevated character 

 than on the nortli-west. The couiitry coni[)rised between 

 hike St. Thomas and the last branch of the St. Auues river 

 lit generally mounlainouh, and the soil sandy, but on the 



