238 On the Transition Rocks of the Cataraqui. 



Mountains or in the unexplored countries between the Canadas and 

 the Arctic Ocean. The Indians assert that there is an active vol- 

 cano in the interior, behind the settled ranges of townships on the 

 northern shore of the St. Lawrence, and a crater of a small extinct 

 volcano is marked on the Upper Canada maps, in the township of 

 Mulmur, near that elevated range called the Blue Mountains, which 

 border the shores of Lake Huron in Nottawasaga Bay, from Cabot's 

 Head to the termination of that vast gulf. 



These mountains, which from a distant view I obtained of them 

 last summer, are the highest land in those parts of Upper Canada 

 yet laid out for settlement, and will, I have no doubt, when exam- 

 ined, prove to be a spur of that chain which runs along the opposite 

 coast of Huron, and is connected with the Rocky Mountains on one 

 side, and with the Atlantic, through the Thousand Islands of the St. 

 Lawrence, on the other. 



That vast tracts of country have been upheaved, even in our own 

 times, is well known, and that the continued action of volcanic fires 

 exists at an immense depth, in given directions, is also clearly estab- 

 lished, and is no where better exemplified than by looking at the map 

 of Mexico, where from Tuxtla on the Gulf of Mexico to the Re- 

 villagegido Islands, on the Pacific shore, is nearly a straight line, un- 

 der the same parallel of longitude, of active craters. From Mount 

 St. Elias, on the Pacific side of the Rocky Mountains or North Amer- 

 ican Andes, to Cape Horn, or almost the whole semi-cireumference 

 of the globe, is another but more tortuous chain of burning moun- 

 tains, the number of which is not even yet known. 



These are the valves by which the destructive gases are liberated, 

 and to which the New World owes its safety, and in the original effort 

 to reach them, on the north, have the rocks been rent, and the trap- 

 pose formations of the Canadas been called into existence. 



In Lower Canada, it is probable, as we have already stated, there 

 has been an offset to these breathing holes of the Fire King, for 

 there, in the country lying along the southern shore of the Gulf, and 

 in some parts of its northern littoral, near the Saguenay, there are 

 those dome-shaped mountains, which were no doubt originally ac- 

 tive, and which, when explored, will exhibit traces of their former 

 use. Nothing can be more wild, dreary, or magnificent, than the 

 scenery of this region. Lofty cones, (such as those named the Paps 

 of Matane,) in the interior, show themselves to the observer, from 

 the deck, as he coasts along from Anticosti up the Great River, 



