RIVER LIFE. 245 



are merely a sluice on a grand scale. At times of great floods, 

 the appearance from the overhanging precipices is truly wonder- 

 ful, and the noise tremendous, particularly on the ebb of tide. 

 The ordinary rise of the tide above the falls is only six feet, and 

 then only when the river is not swollen. The tide must flow 

 twelve feet below before the river becomes passable for vessels ; 

 the time for such passage lasts about twenty minutes after the 

 rise of tide creates a fall from below ; on the returning tide the 

 water becomes level for the same space of time, and thus only at 

 four times in the twenty-four hours can vessels enter St. John's 

 harbor, in which the rise of tide is from twenty-five to thirty 

 feet. Above the falls the river widens, and forms a bay of some 

 magnitude, surrounded by high and rugged wood-land. Passing 

 up the bay, huge calcareous rocks, and vast, dark pine forests 

 stretch up the sides of lofty hills and promontories." 



From the city of St. John's, which is contiguous to the falls, up 

 to Fredericton (the seat of government), ninety miles distant, 

 there is much to admire in the bays and beautiful islands which 

 dot its limpid waters. A great portion of the land skirting its 

 banks is alluvial, running back to beautiful ridges which swell 

 up in the distance, and "the result is a luxuriant landscape." 

 " For one hundred and thirty miles further the river flows through 

 a fertile wooded country." "Sixty-three miles above Frederic- 

 ton are the towns of Northampton and Woodstock. The next 

 conspicuous place we reach is Mars Hill, about five miles and a 

 half west of the River St. John's, and one hundred from Ftf 

 icton. This town has considerable interest attached to it from 

 the circumstance of its being the poinl fixed on by the Brit- 

 ish commissioners as the eommencemenl of the range of high- 

 lands forming the boundary of the United States. The mount- 

 ain is about three miles in length, with 8 base upward of four 

 miles, an elevation of t wo thousand feel above the sea. and twelve 

 hundred above the source of the St. Croix. Near the summit it 



