Up the Ottawa. 95 



country, twelve miles to Grenville, where the land becomes 

 very hilly, rising abruptly from the water's edge. Opposite 

 to this village, at the head of the Long Sault rapids, is 

 Hawkesbury, where we meet with the first of the large 

 lumber establishments, which have been the means of 

 developing the whole upper portion of the Ottawa, whose 

 waters would probably otherwise have rolled for years to 

 come through a dense wilderness. These mills, which are 

 three in number, are principally supplied from the Rivers 

 Gatineau and Roii^re, and manufacture on an average 

 27,000,000 feet, board measure, per annum. To give an 

 idea of the vastness of these lumbering establishments to 

 those unacquainted with that line of manufacture, we 

 append a description of these mills; for the description 

 of one answers for all others in its general outline. They 

 belong to the Hon. John Hamilton & Brother, who have 

 paid the greatest care to secure the comforts of the people 

 under their control, and the whole village bears signs of 

 opulence and order. The dock is capable of containing 

 40,000 saw logs ; the mills contain ninety-two vertical saws, 

 nineteen circular saws, fourteen butting saws, driven by 

 sixty-three water-wheels ; fifteen hundred saw-logs are man- 

 ufactured in twenty-four hours, and one hundred and sixty- 

 five men and boys are employed in and about the mills. 

 These are divided into day and night workers, alternately 

 working for twelve hours each, so that during the summer 

 months the mills never cease running. Of agricultural pro- 

 duce there is expended 750 tons of hay, 25,000 bushels of oats, 

 5,000 bushels of turnips, 6,000 bushels of potatoes, 1,000 bar- 

 rels of pork, 9,000 barrels of flour, and 2,000 barrels of oatmeal 

 in the woods. So that 2,000 tons of agricultural produce is 

 consumed by this firm alone. This shows what an import- 

 ant branch in the industrial economy of the Province the 

 lumber business is, and what vast resources are yet to be 

 developed and applied. The lumberers are a race of men 



