Nortfi~West Continent of America, 



287 



also Lake Huron, through which it continues to the strait 

 of St. Mary, latitude 461. North ; from which we will 

 suppose the line to strike to the East of North, to the 

 head of James-Bay, in the latitude already mentioned. 



Of this great tract, more than half is represented as 

 barren and broken, displaying a surface of, rock and fresh 

 water lakes, with a very scattered and scanty proportion of 

 soil. Such is the whole coast of Labrador, and the land, 

 called East Main to the West of the heights, which divide 

 the waters running into the river and gulf of St. Laurence, 

 from those flowing into Hudson's Bay. It is consequently 

 inhabited only by a few savages, whose numbers are pro-^ 

 portioned to the scantiness of the soil ; nor is it probable, 

 from the same cause, that they will increase. The fresh 

 and salt waters, with a small quantity of game, which the 

 few, stinted woods afford, supply the wants of nature s 

 from whence, to that of the line of the American boundary, 

 and the Atlantic ocean, the soil, wherever cultivation has* 

 been attempted, has yielded abundance; particularly on 

 the river St. Laurence, from Quebec upwards, to the line 

 of boundary already mentioned ; but a very inconsiderable 

 proportion of it has been broken by the ploughshare. 



The line of the second division may be traced from that 

 of the first at St. Mary's, from which also the line of 

 American boundary runs, and is said to continue through 

 Lake Superior, (and through a lake called the Long Lake 

 which has no existence) to the Lake of the Woods, in 

 latitude 49. 37. North, from whence it is also said to 

 run West to the Mississippi, which it may do, by giving 

 it a good deal of Southing, but not otherwise ; as the 

 source of that river does not extend further North than la- 

 titude 47. 38. North, where it is no more than a small 

 brook ; consequently, if Great-Britain retains the right of 

 entering it along the line of division, it must be in a 

 lower latitude, and wherever that may be, the line must 

 be continued West, till it terminates in the Pacific Ocean, 

 to the South of the Columbia. This division is then 

 bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the West, the Frozen 

 Sea and Hudson's Bay on the North and East. The 

 Russians, indeed, may claim with justice, the islands and 

 coast from Behring's Straits to Cook's Entry. 



The whole of this country will long continue in the pos- 

 session of its present inhabitants, as they will remain con- 

 tented with the produce of the woods, and waters for their 



