56 TRAVELS THROUGH LOWER CANADA : 
gation may in a few years be still more ob¬ 
structed than it is at present. It is notorious, 
that since the river was first discovered; several 
islands and points have been formed near its 
mouth, and the different channels have under¬ 
gone very material alterations for the worse, as 
to their courses and depths. The River St. 
Lawrence, however, on the contrary, is no less 
than ninety miles wide at its mouth, and it is 
navigable for ships of the line as far as Quebec, 
a distance of four hundred miles from the sea. 
y.' \ ‘ *. * i 
The channel also, instead of having been im¬ 
paired by time, is found to be considerably 
better now than when the river was first dis¬ 
covered; and there is reason to imagine that it 
will improve still more in process of time, as 
the clear water that flows from Lake Ontario 
comes down with such impetuosity, during the 
floods in the spring of the year, as; frequently 
to remove banks of gravel and loose -stones' iii 
the river, and thus to deepen its bed. The 
channel on the north side of the island of Or¬ 
leans, immediately below Quebec, which, ac¬ 
cording to the account of Le P. de Charlevoix, 
was not sufficiently deep in the year 1720 to 
admit a shallop cf a small size, except at the 
time of high tides, is at present found to be 
deep enough for the largest vessels, and is the 
channel*most generally used. 
