52 NATURAL AND CIVIL 



fifteenth of April, the ice generally goes off j 

 and it is not uncommon for many square miles 

 of it, to disappear in one day. 



The north line of Vermont passes over the 

 south part of the lake Pvlemphremagog, This 

 Jake is about forty miles in length, and two or 

 tliree miles wide. It lies chiefly in the Province^ 

 of Canada ) and has a northerly direction. The 

 river St. Francis forms a communication be- 

 tween the lake Memphremagog, and the river 

 St. Lawrence. Round this lake, there is a rich 

 soil, and a fine level country. 



in the ice, generally run in an oblique direction, from one Cape to anoth- 

 er, and often to the distance of ten or fifteen miles. Sohietimes the ictf 

 ■will separate on each side, to the distance of five or six feet ; at othef 

 times it will lap over, or more commonly he thrown up in ridges four ot* 

 five feet high ; and it is often broken into pieces of two or three feet di- 

 ameter, all round the edges. These openings often prove dangerous to 

 the traveller. They seem to be produced, by the occasional rise and fall 

 «f the waters, in the lake ; which a^ they cannot remove, must operate 

 to elevate and depress, and thus to bend and break, the extensive and 

 solid body of ice, which must have assumed the spherical form, which the 

 waters had when tUey were first frozen. 



