Eastern Townships. 51 



miles in length, by about thirty miles in breadth ; thus, in 

 its course, draining about 3,000 square miles of land of its 

 redundant waters. Its breadth varies from 400 to 600 yards ; 

 its course is frequently interrupted by small, picturesque 

 islands, covered with hardwood timber, which add con- 

 siderably to its beauty. The banks of the Chaudiere are, in 

 general, high and precipitous, — thickly clothed with verdure. 

 The bed of the river is rugged, and often much contracted 

 by rocks jutting out from the banks on either side, which 

 occasion violent rapids. Near the mouth of it are the cele- 

 brated falls described elsewhere. This stream has been 

 brought into notice within the last few years, from the 

 discoveries that have been made of gold in its bed, and the 

 washings of its sand-bars and bends. Gold has been known 

 to exist in the region through which it flows for some time, 

 but it never, till within the last three years, was thought to 

 exist in paying quantities. It exists in the quartz rocks 

 scattered through the country, and in alluvial and diluvial 

 deposits. As to the richness of the mines, Sir William 

 Logan says, " the deposits will not, in general, remunerate 

 unskilled labor, and that agriculturists and others engaged 

 in the ordinary occupations of the country would only lose 

 their labour by turning gold hunters." In some places, 

 however, gold has been found sufficiently plentiful to pay 

 the cost of procuring it. Several Companies are organized, 

 and have procured a considerable quantity of the precious 

 metal. Lake Megantic, or Chaudiere Pond as it was then 

 called, has been rendered memorable in history, as the route 

 by which Arnold, in 1775, accomplished his perilous march 

 through the wilderness up the Kennebec, through Lake 

 Megantic, and down the Chaudiere River to Quebec. The 

 account of his dreary march, and the perils that beset him, 

 are admirably set forth in the " Life of Arnold," by J. Sparks. 

 We are told that a few French were settled some thirty 

 miles from the lake on the river, whose good wishes Arnold 



