THE SAGUENAY. 



.OM Quebec to the Saguenay the distance is one 

 hundred and thirty miles. Opposite the mouth of 

 this gloomy river is a sand-bar, and here a vessel 

 may ride at anchor in shallow water. But let her 

 move but a dozen rods up stream, and she will find 

 no bottom! Soundings show a depth of one hundred 

 and twenty fathoms. The line of this mighty submarine 

 precipice is as distinctly defined where the inky waters 

 that flow out of the river join the St. Lawrence, as the blue 

 Gulf Stream is defined in the milky waters of the ocean main. 

 Yet further up the river, the depth is a thousand feet, and 

 where Capes Trinity and Eternity drop their stupendous 

 tfrags perpendicularly into the Stygian waves, it has been 

 fathomed almost a mile without reaching bottom ! And all 

 this immensity of water rolls out with a volume and tide 

 whose influence should be seriously and disastrously felt. 

 Yet its effect is not as perceptible as the tides that ebb in the 

 Bay of Fundy. Where then is the vast receptable of this 

 overwhelming discharge ? Where the outlet into the ocean ? 

 It is said, and with palpable verification, that the waters of 

 Montmorenci Falls find their way into the body of the St. 

 Lawrence Kiver by a subaqueous and subterranean outlet. 

 Then, surely, the volume of the Saguenay must discharge 

 itself through some similar passage into the Gulf. And who 



