380 LIGHTHOUSES AND PROVISION -DEPOTS. 



called the Traverse or Narrows, about fifty-five miles 

 below Quebec, though the river is there thirteen miles 

 wide, the channel usually selected by pilots is only 1800 

 yards in width, and, to add to the difficulty, the ebb-tide 

 runs through it at the rate of seven, and the flood of five 

 or six miles an hour, and there is no anchorage. 



From such circumstances as this arises the risk usually 

 understood to attend the navigation of the St Lawrence, 

 and which is one cause of the higher rates of insurance 

 usually demanded for vessels which sail to or from this 

 river. 



The mouth of the river also has its dangers ; and 

 among the consequences of these, the most distressing 

 are the shipwrecks which occasionally occur, after the 

 winter season has set in, and when unhappy crews, 

 having saved their lives from the sea, are thrown upon 

 frozen shores or islands, far from human sympathy, or 

 necessary supplies of food, fuel, or clothing. 



To obviate the dangers arising from the intricacy of 

 the navigation, lighthouses have already been erected at 

 various points ; but the number of these is still insuffi- 

 cient ; and a people who have expended the large sums 

 I have mentioned in improving the upper parts of the 

 river cannot hesitate — now that their sacrifices are begin- 

 ning to be appreciated, and are likely to meet with their 

 reward — to organise and maintain a sufficiently extensive 

 lighthouse department, to give confidence and security 

 to the navigator. 



It is not more on behalf of humanity, than as a matter 

 of wise economy, that I would suggest the establishment 

 of fixed depots of provisions, and other stores, in charge 

 of the necessary number of people, at different points on 

 the islands or coasts about the mouth of the St Lawrence, 

 where shipwrecks most frequently occur — that those 

 appalling evils may be averted, which to us, who live in 

 more genial climes, appear among the most fearful to 



