"LA GRANDE DECHARGE" OF LAKE ST. JOHN 169 



ful as is their dread of the whirlpool, the guides usual- 

 ly keep nearer to it than to the falls on either side of 

 it, taking the precaution, however, to pass it when the 

 eddy is filling up, and on no account when the whirl- 

 pool is deepening. Anything drawn into the vortex 

 as it increases its depth is necessarily doomed to de- 

 struction. There is a possibility of a canoe that en- 

 ters it, as it is filling up to the level of the surface 

 of the surrounding water, being guided safely out of 

 it by experienced hands before the whirlpool again 

 commences to hollow out the deep abyss that recalls 

 the myth of the monster Charybdis sucking down the 

 water of the sea. But this all depends upon the con- 

 dition of the vortex when floating substances are 

 drawn into it. A canoe containing Mr. B. A. Scott 

 and his two guides was once, by a miscalculation, 

 sucked into the whirlpool at an unfavorable moment. 

 The eddying abyss had only partially filled, and into 

 its deep, yawning hollow was drawn the canoe; while 

 the swirl of the water upon bow and stern exerted a 

 wrench upon the apparently frail craft that threat- 

 ened to tear it asunder amidships on both sides of the 

 axis upon which it revolved with such alarming veloc- 

 ity. It creaked and groaned and strained with the 

 opposing forces exerted upon it, and seemed as if its 

 sides must come together, crunched, as it appeared to 

 be, between the cruel, closing jaws of some demon of 

 the deep. But it was, fortunately, for only a moment. 

 The eddy was already rapidly filling, and the fresh 

 green bark of the canoe, and the strength and sap 

 that still lingered in the newness of its stout frame- 

 work and ribs of cedar, and in " the larch's supple 



