350 Vegetation of the Ottawa and some of its Tributaries. 



greater variety of these, and other circumstances which affect the 

 vegetable world, than the province of Lower Canada. Its climate 

 seems to be but little else than a succession of anomalies in the ex- 

 tremes of heat and cold,* wet and dry ; whilst every description 

 of soil is found, from the best to the worst — in some situations cov- 

 ered with perennial snows ; in others the noxious exhalations and 

 vapors of the Atlantic are condensed upon its unfruitful surface, while 

 yet other portions, more favorably situated, enjoy a milder climate 

 comparatively secure from the blasting winds of its northern seas. 

 Under the influence of these causes, the vegetable productions of 

 the Province are in some districts rich and luxuriant while in others 

 less favorably located, they are sickly and dwarfish. In its regions 

 of perpetual frost, it is natural to conclude, that the vegetable king- 

 dom is narrowed down to a few Lichens, hardy Ferns and stunted 

 forest trees. Upon the Labrador coast and the broken land bordering 

 on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, vegetation is only thinly scattered 

 over the bleak and rugged hills, compared with which the western 

 valleys of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa exhibit a vegetation of a 

 new and interesting character, a change that is not confined to their 

 cultivated lands, but is found also in the indigenous plants of their na- 

 tive forests. 



How far the geological formations of the Ottawa region may affect 

 its vegetation, v/hether considered as only furnishing a substratum 

 for its soil, or in reference to its future disintegration it is doubtless 

 impossible to determine,! but as by far the greatest portion of its ex- 

 tensive territory has never yet been reduced to a state of cultivation 



* According to Joseph Bouchette, in his geographical history of L. Canada, the 

 range of Fahrenheit's thermometer in summer is between 81 and 102, and though in 

 winter it sometimes sinks to — 31 ; yet this is unusual and the cold is generally indi- 

 cated between — 20 and — 25, 



t Almost the whole course of the Ottawa river seems to be through the transition 

 and secondary formation which rest in the great basin of the primitive rocks, formed 

 by the range that runs in the north eastern direction from this state into Caaada 

 crossing the St. Lawrence at the thousand islands, making an angle of 80° or 90° with 

 the chain that stretches acioss the province in an eastern direction from the sources 

 of the Ottawa, north of Lake Huron towards the coasts of Labrador, separating the 

 northern lakes Mitissing, Abittibe, &c. whose waters flow into James's Bajr, from the 

 lakes and rivers that discharge themselves into the St. Lavfrence through the St. 

 Maurice and Saguenay. Besides the usual alluvial formations, that class of Detritus 

 termed by Prof. Eaton in his geological nomenclature, ultimate diluvion frequently 

 is seen, particularly in the high lands near " riviere de Lagrasse" and " Lac de la 

 Chaudiere." 



