"LA GRANDE DECHARGE" OF LAKE ST. JOHN 165 



while not infrequently they struck with such violence 

 against a projecting point of mainland or island that 

 only a portion of their waters continued along their 

 downward course, the remainder being hurled in a 

 heavy current up the stream, apparently in open defi- 

 ance of every law of nature governing a rush of water. 

 Thus, side by side, could be seen contrary currents of 

 violent velocity, the upward rush of the one being lit- 

 tle less decided than the downward roar of the other. 

 Sometimes the water, that dashed with such seeming 

 yet determined unnaturalness up over opposing as- 

 cents, became widely separated from the descending 

 rapids, until it was hurled by the momentum that first 

 started it on its upward course into some other falling 

 current, often around the upper end of a neighboring 

 island. At other times again it rushed with an eddy- 

 ing swirl, that gave rise to a treacherous whirlpool, 

 back into the embrace of the parent rapid, from which 

 it had become temporarily separated by the same ap- 

 parently eternal and external impetus that for ages 

 may continue to play shuttlecock with some of its 

 constituent elements. Some distance below these ex- 

 citing scenes, and often also after the heaviest chutes 

 of the Grand Discharge, where the rapids cease from 

 troubling and the waters are at rest, there is an oily 

 smoothness over the surface of the reposing fluid, 

 whose only motion is a measured yet very percepti- 

 ble heaving of the water as of the breast of some 

 sleeping Yenus, whom the tourist may almost fancy, 

 from the natural beauty and grace of the surround- 

 ings, is about to rise from the pool beside him, as in 

 the Anadyomene of Apelles. 



