28 EARLY GAZETTEER AND MAP LITERATURE 



pleasant, and apparently fertile, and capable of valuable improve- 

 ments." The narrative tben goes on to say that "the Pdver St. 

 Lawrence takes its leave of Lake Ontario at the north-east corner of 

 it. Near the lake it is ten or twelve miles wide, having several 

 islands on it, on one of Avhich, the most northerly, at the head of the 

 rifts, is a small fortress erected by the French and now kept up by 

 us." The Major uses, we will observe, the good old English word 

 " Kifts" for " Rapids" — or parts of a river where the bed is broken 

 into steps or precipices : this is, in fact, the exact representative of 

 the word Cataract, which properly denotes a broken, rocky bed of a 

 river, rather than an abrupt fall of the whole stream. 



This Major Rogers was the oificer sent up by General Amherst 

 from Montreal, in 1760, to take possession of the French posts 

 in the west, evacuated after the conquest, 



In 1799 appeared David William Smith's Topographical Descrip- 

 tion and Provincial Gazetteer of Upper Canada. Its full title runs 

 as follows : — ■" A Short Topographical Description of His Majesty's 

 Province of Upper Canada, in North America, to which is annexed 

 a Provincial Gazetteer. London : published by W. Faden, Geogra- 

 pher to His Majesty and to His Royal Highness the Piince of 

 Wales, Charing Cross, 1799. Printed by W. Bulmer and Co., 

 Russell Court, Cleveland Row, St. James'." 



It is said in the preface to have been drawn up by " David William 

 Smith, Esq., the very' able Surveyor-General of Upper Canada, on 

 the plan of the late Captain Hutchins, for the River Ohio and the 

 countries adjacent." 



This work gives briefly the name and situation of all the original 

 townships, towns, cotmties, and districts of Upper Canada, together 

 with names and situations of all the lakes, baj^s, islands, and rivers. 

 As being the first record of the kind, it has now acquired, as I have 

 said, a certain historical interest. What I have attempted to do in 

 the republication of this Gazetteer in the Canadian Journal is, to 

 subjoin to the several names such information as may seem needful 

 for elucidation : if a native name, to give, if possible, the interpre- 

 tation : if a name transferred either from the British Islands or from 

 *rom France, to point out the place or object bearing that name in 

 the mother-countries of the Colony, or the statesman, nobleman, or 

 prince sought to be complimented or commemorated by this application 

 of his name. 



