Some Notes on the Rideau Canal. 463 
exceptions, on the west and north-west side of the canal, 
Between Kingston Mills and the mouth of the Tay the 
canal lies, as it were, on the side of a gentle slope from the 
south-west, the lakes thus on that side discharging into it, 
whilst those on the other find their outlet chiefly through 
the Gananoque River to the St. Lawreuce. 
We are apt to regard the townships of Storrington, 
Loughborough and Bedford and the east half of the town- 
ship of Hinchinbrooke, all in the county of Frontenac, as 
unattractive for settlement, and to assume that when the 
pine and spruce are removed from their forests there will 
be nothing left in this somewhat rugged country but the 
possibility of minerals. It is consoling, however, to think 
that all the lakes which, walled in by heights of verdure- 
clad gneiss, picturesquely stud these townships in every 
direction, are the great reservoirs from which chiefly is 
drawn the supply of water needed to keep the Rideau Canal 
navigable as well in its course to Ottawa as in its course to 
Kingston. Had the great forces of nature not placed these 
Laurentian ridges in positions to form lake basins between 
them, and left the country rugged and unattractive, so that 
the virgin forests might largely remain and in their depths 
hold back the waters from being too quickly drained away, 
it would be hopeless to maintain uninterrnpted navigation 
on the canal. 
The more that consideration is given to the subject, the 
more reasonable does it seem to be to regard these Lauren- 
tian ridges as having long preceded the ice age, and to view 
the lakes, scattered over this archean area here in such 
apparent, picturesque confusion, as in reality occupying 
still older lake basins whose position and general direction 
was due to the presence of the ridges, and through which 
guided in their course by the lie of the ridges, the glaciers 
during the ice age flowed. These ancient ridges have suf- 
fered from the decomposing forces of perhaps centuries of 
the growth and decay upon their surfaces of plant life, of 
the extremes of heat in summer and cold in winter, and of 
