562 THE CLIFFS OF THE SAGUENAY. 



by precipitous headlands, which rise abruptly from 

 its depths to heights in some places exceeding 

 1000 feet. 



The mouth of the Saguenay is generally held to 

 be one of the finest pieces of cliff scenery in the 

 world, the awe-inspiring grandeur of its beetling preci- 

 pices and the deep shadows which they cast upon its 

 boiling eddies, have given rise to the most extravagant 

 exaggerations respecting the rapidity of its currents, 

 its whirlpools and unfathomable depths, which were 

 incorporated into the earlier accounts of this river. The 

 Admiralty survey of it, first made in 1829, di much 

 however to dissipate these inflated descriptions, while 

 officially acknowledging the grandeur of its scenery, 

 which though wild and barren is still full of sublimity 

 and beauty. * 



After passing the mouth of the Saguenay, as a 

 glance at the map will show, the great river continues 

 growing steadily wider, until at Cape Chat, 260 miles 

 below Quebec, it has attained a width of 30 miles, 

 which then rapidly increases to double that amount, 

 some 30 miles further to seaward. The true mouth 

 of the St. Lawrence is generally placed near Cape 

 Gaspe, a point some 390 miles below Quebec, where 

 the distance from shore to shore is 80 miles, f but this 

 is still a distance of 436 miles before entering the 

 Atlantic from which it is separated by the immense 

 landlocked " Bay of St. Lawrence, " which of itself 



* See Admiralty Sailing Directions The St. Lawrence River Pilot, 

 1882, Vol. i., p. 297. Published by order of the Lords Commissioners 

 of the Admiralty. 



j- The channel is here obstructed by the island of Anticosti. The 

 South Channel from thence to the Gaspe territory at Cape de Rosiere 

 is 45 miles wide. The Channel to the north of the Island to the 

 Labrador coast is only 15-$- miles in width. 



