230 Canadian Record of Science. 



The Kideau Lakes. 



By A. T. Drummond. 



The terra Rideau Canal is rather a misnomer. If we ex- 

 cept the five miles of actual canal between the Dufferin 

 Bridge at Ottawa and Hogsback, and. again, the one mile or 

 more each of excavation at Poonamalie and l^ewboro, the 

 whole one hundred and twenty six miles of water route 

 between Ottawa and Kingston now comprise merely two 

 rivers and a chain of lakes — the Rideau River, which, flow- 

 ing for sixty five miles on the one side of the watershed, 

 falls at Ottawa into the Ottawa River; the Cataraqui River, 

 which, descending for eighteen miles on the other side, falls 

 at Kingston into Lake Ontario ; and, connecting the head- 

 waters of these two rivers, a continuous group of nine 

 beautiful lakes, each lying close to the next and all more or 

 less studded with islands. 



Canal journeys are slow and often monotonous. The 

 tourist, whose memories of the beautiful in Canadian river 

 scenery are associated with the Thousand Islands, and who 

 when speeding down the rapids of the St. Lawrence has 

 observed, in striking contrast, the tedious progress through 

 the St. Lawrence canals of the returning steamers as they 

 wend their way back again to the upper lakes, is hardly 

 prepared for the information that, inland, on what is, 

 officially, but, by a misnomer, known as the Rideau Canal, 

 there is for fifty miles a succession of lake scenery more 

 beautiful and more varied than that of the Thousand 

 Islands. And yet it is so. These Rid«au Lakes were 

 better known fifty years ago than now. With the opening 

 of the St. Lawrence canals and the construction of rail- 

 ways, the Rideau route ceased to be a main thoroughfare, 

 and is now only locally known. 



The character of the scenery here is largely due to the 

 geological features of the country. The canon at Kings, 

 ton Mills which forms the bed of the Cataraqui River, is 

 walled by low Laurentian hills of 150 to 200 feet in height, 

 and shows in the bevelled edges of the gneiss near the 



