Montreal. 63 



proportionable width, but dry, and a fort and citadel." Follow- 

 ing down another century of time the change is still greater ; 

 industry, intelligence, labour, and capital have produced 

 at the present time still more remarkable changes. The 

 city of to-day as seen from any approach, with the mountain 

 in the back-ground, together with its beautiful villas, its 

 glittering roofs and domes (all the latter being covered with 

 tin) tall spires and lofty towers, presents to the beholder a 

 vast and picturesque panorama. It extends in frontage 

 on the St. Lawrence about three miles, and is remarkable 

 for its excellent quays and esplanade or terrace, built of 

 limestone, and presenting, together with the cut stone locks 

 of the Lachine Canal, a display of continuous masonry un- 

 equalled on this continent. In this way the city is protected 

 from the annual phenomenon arising from the breaking up 

 of the ice, which frequently is piled up mountains high, and 

 departs en masse, crushing against the unyielding quays. 

 The appearance the river presents at that time is very impos- 

 ing and the sight is unique, for there is no other place where 

 the packing and shoving of the ice are so grandly displayed. 

 For the benefit of those who have never witnessed this 

 .spectacle we will attempt to describe it. When the ice has 

 become stationary at the foot of the St. Mary's current 

 (about a mile below the city) the water quickly rises above ; 

 and the confined nature of this part of the channel affords a 

 more ready resistance to the progress of the floating masses. 

 It is at this period that the grandest movements of the ice 

 occur. From the effect of packing and piling and the freezing 

 of the whole into a solid body, it sometimes attains a thick- 

 ness of from ten to twenty feet : when a sudden rise in the 

 waters lifting up a vast expanse of the whole covering of the 

 river, so high as to free and start it from the many places 

 where it rests on the bottom, the vast mass is set in motion 

 by the whole hydraulic power of this gigantic stream. 

 Proceeding onwards, it piles up over every obstacle it 



