SOIL OPPOSITE QUEBEC. 323 



very strong by nature ; and no art seems to have been 

 spared to turn to account the advantages of natural 

 position. The only weakness, perhaps, is that the forti- 

 fications are too extensive ; and in the event of a war, 

 would require a larger force to maintain or defend them 

 than could easily be spared in so extensive a country. 



Not having met with any of the persons to whom I 

 had brought letters, I crossed the river to Point Levi in 

 the afternoon ; and climbing the lofty bank, from which 

 the view of the city and river is very extensive and beau- 

 tiful, I made a short excursion on foot into the interior. 



The rocks, which on this right bank rise up almost 

 precipitously from the river — like the high ground and 

 cliffs on which the city of Quebec stands — consist of 

 dark-coloured slates or indurated shales, having thin 

 beds of limestone, more or less pure, interstn ified with 

 them. They belong to the higher beds of \ le upper 

 Silurian — the Utica and Lorraine shales whic overlie 

 the Trenton limestone of Kingston and Montreal — and 

 are inclined at a very high angle. From the elevated 

 ground beyond the top of the bank, the country inland 

 appeared to be cleared to a great extent, and undu- 

 lated in long wave-like ridges, till the eye finally rested 

 on low mountains, which I supposed to be a prolonga- 

 tion of the Green Mountains of New Hampshire and 

 Vermont. 



The soil was free, and comparatively light, being- 

 formed for the most part from the crumbling of the 

 shaly rock, of which many fragments were intermingled 

 with it. Indeed in some fields, where the rocks protru- 

 ded at intervals through the surface, the soil — like that 

 fertile country of which I have already spoken, near 

 Woodstock in New Brunswick, or the still richer fields 

 on the Onondaga green shales near Syracuse — con- 

 sisted almost entirely of visible fragments of the shivery 

 indurated shales. 



