COUNTRY OF THE OTTOWA. 317 



would gladly have devoted an entire day. The rocky 

 surface of the island consists, for the most part, of the 

 same Trenton limestone on which Kingston stands ; but 

 it is interstratified with greenstone trap, of which an 

 outburst forms the Mont Royal. Independent of the 

 drift, which deeply covers the hollows and slopes of the 

 island, and modifies its natural surface, there are in the 

 mingled debris of these two rocks materials enough to 

 account for the fertility which in ancient times made 

 it the central residence of the Indian tribes, and has 

 since secured it the frequent eulogies of French and 

 other writers. 



At half-past six P.M., I went on board the steamboat 

 for Quebec. The weather was thick, dark, and rainy, 

 and as I knew no one on board, I retired to my state- 

 room at seven. After a rainy night-voyage of a hundred 

 and sixty miles, during which nothing of the country on 

 either side of the river was to be seen, I found myself 

 in twelve hours in a quiet pleasant room in the St 

 George's Hotel at Quebec. 



In leaving Montreal, it was a matter of much regret 

 to me that I had been obliged to forego the pleasure of 

 making a tour up the Ottowa — a river which is inferior 

 in size only to the St Lawrence, which runs through a 

 country interesting in very many respects, and is the 

 natural outlet for the drainage of an area of eighty 

 thousand square miles. The vast region to which this 

 river and its branches afford the means of internal navi- 

 gation, and of communication with external markets, is 

 already extensively settled. It has also a rapidly increas- 

 ing commercial capital of 12,000 inhabitants at By town, 

 where the Rideau Canal — 150 miles in length — leaves 

 the Ottowa for Kingston, on Lake Ontario. When 

 the first period of settlement has passed over, during 

 which the lumber-trade occupies the sole attention of nearly 

 all the settlers, and the population shall have become 



