of 4 part of the Saguenay Country, §c. 147 
1. It might lay at a greater distance than could be reached 
at so late a period in the season, (12th September.) 
2. The known fertility of volcanic countries would, in the 
interval of thirty seven years of inactivity, have caused those 
parts once ravaged by an eruption, to be covered by a deep 
and dense mass of both living and dead vegetable matter, con- 
cealing all the rocks, and obliterating all the traces of a crater 
by which only an extinct or long inactive volcano could be re- 
cognized. 
3. We were anxious to examine an extensive deposite of 
magnetic iron which lay up the river in a different direction, 
Upon an examination of the greater portion of the rocks we 
have attempted to describe, a Vulcanist or follower of Hutton, 
would we think suspect that the country of which they are 
Characteristic had been the theatre of volcanic activity in very 
ancient times, and upon finding his conjectures supported by 
the inferential evidence which these Joca/* earthquakes afford, 
and that of the more direct and positive description contained 
in Mr. Gagnon’s communication, his doubts on the subjects 
would entirely vanish. For ourselves, being neither Neptunian 
nor Vulcanist, we leave these interesting but often vague en- 
quiries to those who are better qualified to indulge in them, 
being satisfied with the more humble, though not less use- 
ful task of describing facts. 
Although it is believed that no one now living, except Mr. Ga- 
gnon himself saw the flames, &c., many were witnessesto the com- 
parative violence of the earthquakes of 1791. The first is accoun- 
ted for by saying that there were few settlers at St. Paul’s Bay 
at the time, and fewer whose habits or education would lead them 
to take notice of a phenomenon which among the vulgar might 
be supposed to be merely a fire in the woods, had they seen it. 
A 
= - — 
* They are not felton the southern shore of the St, Lawrence nor at St. 
Joachim, to the westward, nor ‘Tadousac to the eastward, 
