2 NATURE'S REALM. 
St. Lawrence is fed by the mightiest bodies of 
fresh water on earth. Immense as is the vol- 
ume of water it pours. into the ocean, any one 
who has traversed all the immense lakes that 
feed it, and tor the surplus waters of which it 
is the only channel to the sea, wonders that it 
is not even more gigantic than itis. Not one 
drop of the waters of the five great lakes finds 
its way to the ocean save through this gigan- 
tic, extraordinary and wondrously beautiful 
river. No wonder, then, that it should despise 
the rain and defy the sunshine. 
The headwaters of the St. Lawrence take 
their rise in Minnesota and form what is known 
as the river St. Louis. It is a small stream, 
and falls into Lake Superior at Duluth. The 
St. Lawrence is generally thought to be a com- 
paratively short river. This idea is by no 
means correct, for, measured from the head- 
waters of the St. Louis River to where it min- 
gles with the ocean, the distance will be found 
to be little short of three thousand miles. The 
St. Lawrence is in reality longer than the Mis- 
sissippi proper, not counting the Missouri, and 
there are probably not more than six rivers in 
the world that exceed it in length; but none of 
which, except the Amazon, pours more than 
halt the volume of the St. Lawrence into the 
ocean. The river St. Marie, that connects 
Lake Superior with Lake Huron, is where the 
St. Lawrence next assumes the form of a river. 
It is here an immense volume of water, nearly 
a mile wide and wondrously beautiful; here 
tumbling over rapids and there expanding into 
crystal lakes. But the picturesqueness of the 
river St. Marie is sadly marred by a canal and 
by an immense lock that is said to be the iarg- 
est in the world. The St. Lawrence next 
makes its appearance as a river at Sarnia, 
where it rushes out of Lake Huron—a verita- 
ble giant nearly half a mile wide, eighty feet 
deep and with such a rapid current that a 
steam-propelled craft only can breastit. Here 
it is called the Detroit River, and, except where 
it expands into Lake St. Clair, retains its river 
character until it is lost in Lake Erie. The 
scenery from Sarnia to Lake Erie, while not 
striking, is yet very beautiful. The waters of 
the St. Lawrence are here, as they are every- 
where, clear as crystal, pure as nature could 
make them, transparent as a mirror. 
When the St. Lawrence issues out of Lake 
Erie its real glories begin. I'll not attempt to 
describe Niagara. It would be folly in me, tor 
the greatest of those who have attempted it 
have utterly failed. For nearly ten miles 
of its course above and below the cataract the 
St. Lawrence is the glory and the wonder of 
the world, with its rushing, gleaming, teaming 
rapids above the talls; with the falls them- 
selves, their immensity, their thunder and their 
rainbows ; and then the seething, swirling river 
below, confined in the narrow gorge into which 
it has leaped ; shooting up in ragged masses of 
water twenty feet high trom unfathomable: 
abysses; plunging wildly against the rock- 
barriers out of which its own maddened waves. 
have cut a channel; careening round and 
round in the whirlpool; gradually subsiding, 
and at last lowing into Lake Ontario withou 
a ripple. 
After the glory of Niagara comes the glory 
of the Thousand Isles. Very different indeed 
are they from Niagara ; but the Thousand Isles. 
are as unrivalled in their own way as Niagara. 
There is nothing like them in the world, so far 
as it has been explored. The Thousand Isles- 
want but one thing to make them as nearly 
heavenly as it would be possible for anything 
earthly to be, and that is mountain scenery. 
Of this they have none. The Canadian side of 
the river is, however, at one place very steep, 
forming most picturesque cliffs covered with 
green trees of unnumbered species. But the 
Isles themselves are the wonders of the scene. 
There are a great many more than a thousand— 
sizteen hundred and ninety-two, according to 
the most reliable count Some contain thou- 
sands of acres; some are no bigger than a tea- 
table. The biggest and the least of them are 
beautiful. All are covered with shrubs or 
something green, and all are surrounded by 
water so clear, so wonderfully pure, as can be 
found in no river save in the St. Lawrence. 
This purity of water is one of the great charms. 
of this glorious river. If the Thousand Isles 
were in the Ohio or Missouri they would lose 
most of their charms, fer the waters of those- 

