NORTHERN REGION. 15 



the Alleghanies, on the east, and the famed Rocky Mountains 

 on the west running from north to south through the 

 continent. 



We shall easily recollect the gre,at water-system of North 

 America if we consider it to be represented by an irregular 

 cross, of which the Mississippi with its affluents forms the 

 stem ; Lake Superior and the River St. Lawrence, including 

 the intermediate lakes, the eastern arm ; the Lake of the Woods 

 and its neighbours, Lake Winnepeg and the Saskatchewan, the 

 western arm ; and the northern lakes of Athabasca, the Great 

 Slave Lake, and the Mackenzie River, the upper part of the 

 cross. If we observe also a wide level region which runs 

 north and south between the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of 

 Mexico', bounded on either side by the two lofty mountain 

 ranges already mentioned, we shall have a tolerably correct 

 notion of the chief physical features of the North American 

 continent. 



Arriving at the northern end, we shall find it reaching some 

 four degrees north of the Polar Circle, though some of its head- 

 lands extend still further into the icy sea. Beyond it stretches 

 away to an unknown distance towards the Pole a dense 

 archipelago of large islands, the narrow channels between 

 them bridged over in winter by massive sheets of ice, afford- 

 ing an easy passage to the reindeer, musk-oxen, and other 

 animals which migrate southward during the colder portion 

 of the Arctic winter. 



NORTHERN REGION. 



With that end of America will ever be associated the 

 names of Sir John Franklin and his gallant companions, who 

 perished in their search of the North-west Passage ; as well as 



