60 Major Lachlan on the Rise and Fall of the Lakes. 
The Academy will perceive the importance of this conclusion, 
and may judge at the same time from the preceding, of the care 
with which the author has pursued the subject, he having brought 
together for the half century 7000 observations. ‘This number 
is however still small for the solution of a problem of this kind, 
and it is important to increase it both by adding the facts of suc- 
cessive years, and also by going back ie peat eanthrien, which 
the author has already commenced.* 
Art. XI.—On the Periodical Rise and Fall of the Lakes ; by 
Masor Lacuuan, Montreal. ‘ 
Few countries can boast of objects of more imposing natural 
grandeur or deeper philosophical interest, than are presented in 
Canada, in the vast extent and other striking Bitch vag of its 
magnificent inland fresh water seas, and their noble connect ng 
rivers and unrivalled cataracts, coupled with re He anom- 
alous nature of its climate and seasons compared with European 
countries in the same parallel of latitude: and an additional ge- 
ographical interest may be considered as attaching to it, in the 
magnetic meridian passing through it—the line of ‘No varia- 
tion” olen through part of its mediterranean waters.{ 
nvestigation of the causes and effects of these great phys- 
ical phenomena might well engage the attention of a whole life 
of patient observation and study; and such, doubtless, will at 
no distant day, be the case; but in the present state of things, 
in so young a country, all that can be expected is the occasional 
contribution of the unpretending philosophical gleaner ; and, as 
our great Lakes, in the hope of strengthening the arguments ad- 
duced by me in the paper which I had lately the honor of sub- 
mitting to it, in advocacy of the establishment of a system of 
simultaneous meteorological and tidal observations throughout 
British America—as not only a great philosophical desideratum, 
but also likely to prove of substantial service to the country, were 
it om to make us better SRS with the ~—_ benefits de- 
cordance with it a considerable sum was placed at his dis 
+ Read before the Canadian Institute, March 18th, 1854; Canadian Journal, 
Jul 
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