64 Montreal. 



encounters, and when forced into a narrow channel the 

 lateral pressure it there exerts, drives the bordage up the 

 banks, where it sometimes accumulates forty or fifty feet 

 high. Broken by the massive revetment wall of the quays, 

 the ice piles on the street or terrace surmounting it and 

 there stops ; but before the wall was built the sloping bank 

 guided the moving mass to the walls of gardens and houses 

 in a very dangerous manner, and many accidents used to 

 occur. It has been known to pile up against the side of a 

 house more than two hundred feet from the margin of the 

 river, and there break in the windows of the second floor. 

 The "ice-shove" is a sight that a stranger may see only once 

 in a lifetime ; and to such as may be visiting the city at the 

 end of March or beginning of April, we would urge a con- 

 tinuous look out as the thaw sets in, to get a glimpse of this 

 grandest of ice movements. 



The slopes of the mountain in rear of Montreal are wooded 

 nearly to. the summit ; but towards the base the forest trees 

 have given place to orchards, that produce apples, pears and 

 plums of the choicest kind. A drive round the mountain is 

 one of the most delightful imaginable, commanding a view 

 of the city and the valley of the St. Lawrence on the one 

 side, and on the other, of the flat country that stretches 

 northward to the confines of the island, washed by the " Back 

 River" or Ottawa, and studded with pinnacles and towers 

 of convents and religious houses. Diverging from this drive 

 the tourist should visit the Protestant or Mount Royal 

 Cemetery on the St. Laurent side, and the French Cemetery 

 on the Cote des Neiges side, near where the road crosses the 

 spur of the mountain that overlooks the city. In the former 

 especially there are some fine monuments, the Molson Mau- 

 soleum attracting especial notice ; the whole cemetery is 

 tastefully laid out, and from its natural position is one of the 

 most beautiful in Canada. 



Montreal abounds in public buildings: the principal of 



