84 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST, 



lights in the air and the lowing of the sea-cows may have 

 been painted by the alarmed imagination of the witnesses. 



In 1663 Canada was visited with a great earthquake, which 

 extended nine hundred miles east and west, and perhaps fur- 

 ther. The following account is given by Charlevoix : — 



" Trees were thrown into the air with as much force as if 

 a mine had been exploded under their roots, and some were 

 found fixed in the earth by their tops. A person could not 

 feel more secure upon the water than upon the land. The 

 ice which covered the River St. Lawrence and the streams, 

 was broken and thrown together ; large blocks of ice were 

 thrown into the air, and the places which they had left threw 

 up a large quantity of sand and mud. Many fountanis and 

 small streams were dried up ; in others, the waters were 

 impregnated with sulphur ; and there were some whose beds 

 even, in which they had flowed, could not be distinguished. 



" Here the waters became red, there they turned yellow ; 

 those of the river were all white, from Quebec to Tadoussac, 

 a space of thirty leagues. The air had, also, its phenomena. 

 A constant thundering was heard in it ; they saw, or ima- 

 gined they saw, in it spectres of fire, bearing torches in their 

 hands. Flames appeared in it which took all sorts of figures 

 — some of pikes, some of lances ; and burning brands fell on 

 the roofs without setting them on fire. From time to time 

 meanings increased the terror. Sea-cows were heard lowing 

 on the Three Rivers, where never before these fish had 

 appeared ; and their lowings had nothing like that of any 

 creature known. In a word, in the whole extent of three hun- 

 dred leagues from east to west, and more than one hundred 

 and fifty from south to north, the land, the rivers, and the 

 shores of the sea, were, for a long time, by intervals, in such 

 an agitation as the Prophet King represents when he relates 

 the wonders which accompanied the departure from Egypt 

 of the people of God. The effects of this earthquake were 



