Geographic. Character: Northern Division. 101 
passes up stream and the water freshens though the tide rises, nearly as far, 
as Montreal. Above this place, the river becomes a series of rapids separated 
by quieter stretches of water. A maze of islands, the Thousand Islands, are 
at the outlet of Lake Ontario, itself one of the five Great Lakes which 
constitute the system. These lakes are connected by broad rivers and straits 
interrupted at one place by the greatest fall in the world, that of Niagara. 
The water area above the outlet of Lake Ontario is 95,275 square miles 
(245,762 qkm), but to this entire area there is no large tributary river. The 
divide of the system is generally close to the lakes, so that the entire drainage 
area is about 270,000 square miles (693,000 qkm). 
The beds of all the lakes excepting Erie, are below sea level and even if 
their water surface were lowered down to sea level, there would still remain 
large bodies of water. TARR') says: “Whatever view has been prominently 
held concerning the preglacial history of this region, it has been uniformly 
agreed that during or immediately after the glacial period, the preglacial valleys 
have been transformed to basins.. While we now know that most of these 
lakes are the result of irregular drift deposits, Ramsay advocated the view that 
many were due to ice erosion, and suggested that the Great Lakes themselves 
were rock basins carved out by ice erosion”. 
The valley of the St. Lawrence River is bounded on the north in its whole 
length by the Laurentian highlands. They are but a short distance from 
the north shore of the river until the Saguenay is reached, when they come 
out upon it. From thence, the mountains run parallel with the river to within 
2o miles (32 km) of the city of Quebec. There at Cape Tourmente, they turn 
away from the river, but still follow it a distance running west until they strike 
the Ottawa River the chief tributary of the St. Lawrence, between Montreal and 
Ottawa City and follow along up its northern bank until they cross the river 
at Lake des Chats into the province of Ontario. The Laurentian country is 
full of lakes, the sources of perennial streams which flow down into the central 
valley in rapids and cascades. The tableland north of the valley is from 1000 
to 1600 feet (304—486 m) high, and worn into rounded hills and eminences. 
Les Eboulements is 2547 feet (774 m) high and north of Montreal. Trembling 
Mountain 2380 feet is another high point. The central plain of the St. Law- 
rence extends from Quebec, its gateway, westward, gradually widening to Lake 
Ontario. A line of completely detached hills cross this level and fertile plain 
at distances varying from ı5 to 25 miles (24—4ı km). These hills with but 
_ one exception are of igneous rock rising sharply out of the level fields. Mount 
Royal behind the city of Montreal is one of the most noted of these. 
South of the St. Lawrence, the Appalachian chain known in Vermont 
as the Green Mountains crosses the border and continues north-easterly, as 
the Notre Dame Mountains, a series of ridges of no great altitude. A few 
peaks in the range, as Sutton Mountain, reach an elevation of 4000 feet. 
1) TARR, The physical Geography of New York State. 1902: 232. 
