182 NARRATIVES. 



of a pine forest. There are great walls of rock piled up, 

 which look as if the Titans of old mythology had worked 

 there in the unknown ages. If one wishes to study rock- 

 work on the largest scale, let him go to the Laurentian Hills 

 and see the backbone of the world. He will see more. He 

 will see the workshop where the continents were made. All 

 the rocks that are now to be seen are but the remnants of 

 what existed in the old ages, hundreds of millions of years 

 ago. They are all ground down and smoothed and rounded 

 by untold cycles of abrasion and disintegration. I can hardly 

 imagine scenery more impressive and suggestive of the mighty 

 power that has worked upon the world in the long, long past. 

 The Laurentian Hills and valleys are covered with forests 

 of pine, hemlock, hard-wood, cedar, tamarack, &c., and form 

 a paradise for the lumbermen, large companies of whom carry 

 on their operations there. The Canadian government has 

 opened roads running northerly into the forests at intervals of 

 twenty or thirty miles. Settlers have penetrated along these 

 roads and made clearings and erected log-cabins, far into the 

 back country. But it is not a favorable country for farming : 

 the summers are frosty, the winters long and severe, the soil 

 is rocky and shallow. Many deserted cabins are seen, and 

 clearings growing up with forests again. Here and there a 

 section is found where the soil produces fair crops of grain. 

 The greater portion, however, will always remain in wood- 

 land, and continue to be one of the best trapping grounds in 

 Canada for years to come. The head waters of several river 

 systems are in this region, and thousands of small streams 

 and lakes abound. The rocks which underlie the country are 

 mostly impervious to water, and the creeks which wind among 

 the hills, wherever they find a basin, fill it and form a lake. 

 These lakes are one of the most interesting characteristics of 

 the country. Their waters are pure and soft. Encircled as 

 they are with woods, the arrangement of the trees around 

 them is a noticeable feature of the landscape. Next to the 

 water is a belt of evergreens, broken rarely in low, marshy 

 places by sections of black ash, or on low, sandy beaches by 

 white birch. Nearest the waters is a fringe of cedars, whose 



