310 



stretched away on the other side of Beloeil towards St 

 Hyacinth ; and, in the interval, flowing also towards the 

 north, ran the smaller river Yamaska, pouring its waters 

 into the St Lawrence in the middle of Lake St Peter, 

 between the mouths of the E-ichelieu and the St Francis. 

 Over this eastern part of the plain arose occasional 

 isolated mountain elevations, which towards St Hyacinth 

 in front, and in the direction of Lake Champlain on the 

 right, appeared to thicken into clusters or ridges of 

 loftier elevations. 



This wide flat margin, of varying breadth, which on 

 either side girdles the St Lawrence, accompanies it 

 along a great part of its course, follows the Eichelieu up 

 to Lake Champlain, and thence stretches along its 

 shores towards the city of Albany and the river Hudson. 

 It is a post-tertiary region, the latest elevated part of 

 north-eastern America, and contains the remains of 

 marine animals, which are still living in the sea-mouths 

 of the St Lawrence, and along the Atlantic borders of 

 the New England States. In this part of Canada it 

 rests on the Utica slates, and Lorraine shales of the New 

 York geologists, through and among which, beds and 

 domes of trap occasionally force their way, forming the 

 isolated hills of which I have spoken. This Canadian 

 plain exhibits, for the most part, a surface-soil of a pale 

 yellowish-coloured clay, more or less heavy. Along Lake 

 Champlain, however, and at higher levels in the States 

 of New York and Vermont, and towards the Canadian 

 border, the subjacent clay-deposit is covered with drifted 

 sand and gravel, of various depths, which give to the 

 available soil a more open character, degenerating in 

 some places — as between Albany and Schnectady, 

 already described — into an almost worthless pine-bearing 

 sand. 



When first cleared, this post-tertiary belt of level clay 

 land — the St Lawrence Flats, we may call them — pro- 



