388 Canadian Record of Science. 
NOTES oN THE LAKE St. JOHN COUNTRY, 
By EK. T. CHampnrs. 
The Lake St. John region is about one hundred miles 
north of the city of Quebec, and has for the last two years 
been the subject of much attention, from the fact that it 
contains a large amount of very fertile land, and has a 
climate remarkably mild for such a northern situation,—a 
fertility and temperature much better than is enjoyed by 
the settlers around the old fortress city, and nearly equal to 
that of Montreal. Separated from Quebec by the Laurentian 
Mountains, the tedious journey was a great hindrance to its 
settlement, but during the last five or six years a first-class 
railway has been constructed from the old capital to the 
very borders of the lake. This, after running some forty 
miles westward to the pretty town of St. Raymond, in the 
fertile valley of the St. Anne river, turns to the north, 
boldly making its way through the midst of the mountains, 
and after a course of 137 miles more, reaches the town of 
Chambord near the Lake St. John. A branch line of five 
miles goes to the mouth of the Metabetchouan where a 
steamboat is able to come close to the shore. A few notes 
on this somewhat remarkable route and on the lake itself 
may be, perhaps, of some interest. 
After leaving the alluvial clay of the river St. Charles at 
Quebec, the track has a somewhat steep incline of 132 feet 
in the mile. At St. Ambroise, about ten miles from Quebec, 
it passes through the post-pleiocene in a cutting, and two 
or three years ago, before they were overgrown with 
herbage, the banks on each side exhibited a large deposit of 
shells of Saxicava rugosa and Mya truncata, chiefly of the 
former, and in such quantities that the banks were quite 
white. JI am told by the railway people that the elevation 
here is 533 feet above the St. Lawrence. Soon after this 
the line passes through a marshy country, but a few miles 
after leaving St. Raymond, comes upon the grey Laurentian 
gneiss, which appears to form the mass of the mountains 
till we reach Lake Bouchette, about twenty miles from 
Lake St. John. This gneiss varies much in the size and 
