294 GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1868. 



He explored several of the harbors along the 

 coast, some of which, especially, Occasional 

 Harbor, Indian Tackle, and Hopedale, he found 

 of considerable importance for the fisheries. 



There is nothing of special geographical in- 

 terest to report respecting the Dominion of 

 Canada. The restlessness of a portion of its 

 inhabitants under the new regime and the ex- ' 

 traordinary magnitude of the emigration thence 

 to the United States during the past year seem 

 to indicate that its present government is not 

 likely to prove a permanent one, and the most 

 intelligent English travellers and explorers are 

 unanimous in advising the British Government 

 to grant it entire independence or to cede it to 

 the United States. The vast region hitherto 

 known as the Hudson's Bay Company's Terri- 

 tory is to be incorporated with Canada, and, 

 while adding greatly to its area, will increase 

 its expenses far more than its capacity for pro- 

 duction. 



Mr. Waddington, an enterprising capitalist 

 of British Columbia, who has devoted much 

 attention to the best routes for a railroad 

 across British America, and has explored most 

 of the available routes in person, read a paper 

 before the Royal Geographical Society, in 

 March, 1868, and made an address upon this 

 subject. The route he proposed would go in an 

 almost straight line from Montreal to Colling- 

 wood on the Georgian Bay, thence around 

 Lake Superior to Dog Lake, Lake of the "Woods, 

 and Fort Garry ; thence northward along Red 

 River to Lake Winnipeg, up Lake Winnipeg 

 along the Saskatchewan to near the foot of the 

 Rocky Mountains, across through a pass in 50 

 56' north latitude, near the southern end of 

 Soushwap Lake, the elevation of which does 

 not exceed 2,500 feet above the Saskatchewan 

 River, and is very gradual, thence following 

 the valley of the upper Frazer River to the 

 mouth of the Quesnille, a distance of 280 miles, 

 and from that point in a nearly straight line 

 to Bute Inlet in about latitude 50 30'. This 

 route has several advantages : Its length was 

 somewhat greater than that of the Union Pa- 

 cific Railway, being 3,490 miles, but 2,400 

 miles of the whole could consist, at first, of 

 steamboat navigation, railroads being subse- 

 quently constructed as needed, and the 1,090 

 miles of railroad being in great part provided 

 for by the colonial governments. Mr. Wad- 

 dington contended that this route was much 

 less liable to obstruction by snow than that of 

 the Union Pacific. 



Coming now to the United States, there is 

 on the Atlantic slope but little in the way of 

 either geographical progress or discovery to 

 report. A few facts in physical geography and 

 its allied sciences are all that have attracted 

 our attention. In Salisbury, Connecticut, a 

 remarkable cave, rivalling the Mammoth Cave 

 of Kentucky, was discovered in 1868. Its 

 numerous chambers, halls, and galleries, are 

 adorned with stalactites and stalagmites of the 

 most varied forms, and in some instances rise 



into vaulted ceilings or lofty domes, glittering, 

 by artificial light, with numberless crystalline 

 stars. 



In the vicinity of Poultney, Vermont, nu- 

 merous natural wells have been discovered far 

 down below the horizontal layers of slate in 

 the slate quarries, made, it is believed, by the 

 whirling of large pebbles or round stones, in 

 the hollows into which currents of water from 

 greater elevations had forced themselves. 



The coast of New Jersey has been for many 

 years past gradually subsiding, as the recent 

 geographical and geological survey of the State 

 clearly proves. The tides along the whole 

 coast reach a much higher point than they did 

 sixty or one hundred years ago, and the shores 

 have worn away, especially in the southeastern 

 portion of the State, from a fourth of a mile to 

 a mile. From these and other facts, the aver- 

 age subsidence is reckoned at about two feet 

 in a century. As much of the southern part 

 of the State is but slightly elevated above the 

 ocean level (very few points in Cape May 

 County being more than twenty feet above it, 

 this gradual subsidence occasions considerable 

 apprehension. There are, however, very prob- 

 ably in the future, as there have been in the 

 past, epochs of elevation as well as of subsi- 

 dence, and if these should not come in season, 

 as a last resort, the people of southern New 

 Jersey, like those of Holland, must resort to 

 diking out the sea. 



One of those measures, of which our times 

 are so prolific, for changing the course and 

 embouchure of great rivers, or the connection 

 of large bodies of water, is now in progress in 

 Louisiana. The Mississippi and Mexican Gulf 

 Ship-Canal Company have undertaken to open 

 a ship-canal between the Mississippi River and 

 Lake Borgne, to leave the river at English 

 Turn, ten miles below New Orleans. This 

 canal will be but about three miles in length, 

 opening into the Bayou Bienvenue, an arm of 

 Lake Borgne ; it will be eighteen feet in depth, 

 and have a lock three hundred and fifty feet in 

 length and eighty feet in width, to guard 

 against the annual rise and fall of twelve feet 

 in the river. By this route the largest steam- 

 ers can load anywhere on the Upper Missis- 

 sippi, for any of the Gulf ports east of New 

 Orleans, passing out through Lake Borgne into 

 the Mississippi Sound, and thence to Mobile or 

 elsewhere in the Gulf, saving the one hundred 

 and twenty miles of difficult and dangerous 

 navigation of the Mississippi below English 

 Turn, as well as the passage of the bar, and the, 

 eighty miles northward from Pass 1'Outre to 

 Cat Island ; or the dangerous and shallow nav- 

 igation of Lake Pontchartrain. The cost of 

 the canal is estimated at $300,000, and it is to 

 be completed by September, 1869. It is esti- 

 mated that it will save nearly a million of dol- 

 lars annually in tonnage, pilotage, and port 

 charges, while it will greatly increase the 

 commerce of the port. In this case, the canal, 

 so inexpensive in its character, seems to be 



