America Volume IV Part 5

The best view of the great cataract is from the Canadian sh.o.r.e just below it, where, from an elevation, the upper rapids can be seen flowing to the brink of the fall. A bright day is an advantage, when the green water tints are most marked. The Canadian sh.o.r.e above, curves around from the westward, and in front are the dark and precipitous cliffs of Goat Island, surmounted by foliage. The Canadian rapids come to the brink an almost unbroken sheet of foaming waters, but the narrower rapids on the American side are closer, and have a background of little islands, with torrents foaming between. The current pa.s.sing over the American fall seems shallow, compared with the solid ma.s.ses of bright green water pouring down the Canadian horseshoe. There, on either hand, is an edge of foaming streams, looking like cl.u.s.ters of constantly descending frosted columns, with a broad and deeply recessed, bright-green central cataract, giving the impressive idea of millions of tons of water pouring into an abyss, the bottom of which is obscured by seething and fleecy clouds of spray. On either side, dark-brown, water-worn rocks lie at the base, while the spray bursts out into mammoth explosions, like puffs of white smoke suddenly darting from parks of artillery. The water comes over the brink comparatively slowly, then falls with constantly accelerated speed, the colors changing as the velocity increases and air gets into the torrent, until the original bright green becomes a foaming white, which is quickly lost behind the clouds of spray beneath. These clouds slowly rise in a thin, transparent veil far above the cataract. From under the spray the river flows towards us, its eddying currents streaked with white. A little steamboat moves among the eddies, and goes almost under the ma.s.s of falling water, yet finds a practically smooth pa.s.sage. Closer, on the left hand, the American fall appears a rough and broken cataract, almost all foam, with green tints showing through, and at intervals along its face great ma.s.ses of water spurting forward through the torrent as a rocky obstruction may be met part way down. The eye fascinatingly follows the steadily increasing course of the waters as they descend from top to bottom upon the piles of boulders dimly seen through the spray clouds. Adjoining the American cataract is the water-worn wall of the chasm, built of dark red stratified rocks, looking as if cut down perpendicularly by a knife, and whitened towards the top, where the protruding limestone formation surmounts the lower shales. Upon the faces of the cliffs can be traced the manner in which the water in past ages gradually carved out the gorge, while at their bases the sloping talus of fallen fragments is at the river's edge. Through the deep and narrow canyon the greenish waters move away towards the rapids below. It all eternally falls, and foams and roars, and the ever-changing views displayed by the world's great wonder make an impression unlike anything else in nature.

GOAT ISLAND.

Niagara presents other spectacles; the islands scattered among the upper rapids; their swiftly flowing, foaming current rus.h.i.+ng wildly along; the remarkable lower gorge, where the torrent making the grandest rapids runs finally into the Whirlpool basin with its terrific swirls and eddies--these join in making the colossal exhibition. Added to all is the impressive idea of the resistless forces of Nature and of the elements. Few places are better fitted for geological study, and by day or night the picture presents constant changes of view, exerting the most powerful influence upon the mind.

Goat Island between the two falls is a most interesting place, covering, with the adjacent islets, about sixty acres, and it was long a favorite Indian Cemetery. The Indians had a tradition that the falls demand two human victims every year, and the number of deaths from accident and suicide fully maintains the average. There have been attempts to romantically rename this as Iris Island, but the popular t.i.tle remains, which was given from the goats kept there by the original white settlers. It was from a ladder one hundred feet high, elevated upon the lower bank of Goat Island, near the edge of the Canadian fall, that Sam Patch, in 1829, jumped down the Falls of Niagara. He endeavored to gain fame and a precarious living by jumping down various waterfalls, and not content with this exploit, made the jump at the Genesee falls at Rochester and was drowned. A bridge crosses from the American sh.o.r.e to Goat Island, and it is recorded that two bull-terrier dogs thrown from this bridge have made the plunge over the American falls and survived it. One of them lived all winter on the carca.s.s of a cow he found on the rocks below, and the other, very much astonished and grieved, is said to have trotted up the stairs from the steamboat wharf about one hour after being thrown into the water and making the plunge.

From the upper point of Goat Island a bar stretches up the river, and can be plainly seen dividing the rapids which pa.s.s on either side to the American and Canadian falls. A foot-bridge from Goat Island, on the American side, leads to the pretty little Luna Island, standing at the brink of the cataract and dividing its waters. The narrow channel between makes a miniature waterfall, under which is the famous "Cave of the Winds." Here the venturesome visitor goes actually under Niagara, for the s.p.a.ce behind the waterfall is hollowed out of the rocks, and amid the rus.h.i.+ng winds and spray an idea can be got of the effects produced by the greater cataracts. Here are seen the rainbows formed by the sunlight on the spray in complete circles; and the cave, one hundred feet high, and recessed into the wall of the cliff, gives an excellent exhibition of the undermining processes constantly going on. Upon the Canadian side of Goat Island, at the edge of the fall, foot-bridges lead over the water-worn and honeycombed rocks to the brink of the great Horseshoe. Amid an almost deafening roar, with rus.h.i.+ng waters on either hand, there can be got in this place probably the best near view of the greater cataract. Here are the Terrapin Rocks, and over on the Canadian side, at the base of the chasm, are the fragments of Table Rock and adjacent rocks which have recently fallen, with enormous ma.s.ses of water beating upon them. In the midst of the rapids on the Canadian side of Goat Island are also the pretty little islands known as the "Three Sisters" and their diminutive "Little Brother," with cascades pouring over the ledges between them--a charming sight. The steep descent of the rapids can here be realized, the torrent plunging down from far above one's head, and rus.h.i.+ng over the falls. This fascinating yet precarious region has seen terrible disasters and narrow escapes. The overpowering view of all, from Goat Island, is the vast ma.s.s of water pouring down the Canadian falls. This is fully twenty feet in depth at the brink of the cataract, and it tumbles from all around the deeply recessed Horseshoe into an apparently bottomless pool, no one yet having been able to sound its depth. In 1828 the "Michigan," a condemned s.h.i.+p from Lake Erie, was sent over this fall, large crowds watching. She drew eighteen feet water and pa.s.sed clear of the top. Among other things on her deck were a black bear and a wooden statue of General Andrew Jackson. The wise bear deserted the s.h.i.+p in the midst of the rapids and swam ash.o.r.e. The s.h.i.+p was smashed to pieces by the fall, but the first article seen after the plunge was the statue of "Old Hickory,"

popping headforemost up through the waters unharmed. This was considered a favorable omen, for in the autumn he was elected President of the United States.

THE RAPIDS AND THE WHIRLPOOL.

The surface of Niagara River below the cataract is for some distance comparatively calm, so that small boats can move about and pa.s.s almost under the ma.s.s of descending waters. The deep and narrow gorge stretches far to the north with two ponderous international railroad bridges thrown across it in the distance, carrying over the Vanderbilt and Grand Trunk roads. An electric road is constructed down the bottom of the gorge on the American bank, and another along its top on the Canadian side. The water flows with occasional eddies, its color a brilliant green under the sunlight, the gorge steadily deepening, the channel narrowing, and when it pa.s.ses under the two railroad bridges, which are close together, the river begins its headlong course down the Lower Rapids leading to the Whirlpool. With the speed of an express train, the torrent runs under these bridges, tossing, foaming and rolling in huge waves, buffeting the rocks, and thus it rushes into the Whirlpool. Viewed from the bottom of the gorge alongside the torrent, the effect is almost painful, its tempestuous whirl and headlong speed having a tendency to make the observer giddy. The rus.h.i.+ng stream is elevated in the centre far above the sides, the waves in these rapids at times rising thirty feet, tossing wildly in all directions, and coming together with tremendous force. Huge rocks, fallen in earlier ages, evidently underlie the torrent. It was in these terrible rapids that several daring spirits, and notably Captain Webb in 1883, attempted, unprotected, to swim the river, and paid the penalty with their lives. More recently these rapids have been safely pa.s.sed in casks, peculiarly constructed, although the pa.s.sengers got rough usage. The Whirlpool at the end of the rapids is a most extraordinary formation. The torrent runs into an oblong pool, within an elliptical basin, the outlet being at the side through a narrow gorge not two hundred and fifty feet wide, above which the rocky walls tower for three hundred feet. Into this basin the waters rush from the rapids, their current pus.h.i.+ng to its farthest edge, and then, rebuffed by the bank of the abyss, returning in an eddy on either hand. These two great eddies steadily circle round and round, and logs coming down the rapids sometimes swim there for days before they are allowed to get to the outlet. Upon the left-hand side of this remarkable pool the eddy whirls around without obstruction, while that upon the right hand, where the outlet is, rebounds upon the incoming torrent and is thrown back in huge waves of mixed foam and green, the escaping waters finally rus.h.i.+ng out through the narrow opening, and on down more brawling rapids to the end of the deep and wonderful gorge, and thence in placid stream through the level land northward to Lake Ontario.

NIAGARA INDUSTRIES AND BATTLES.

The town of Niagara Falls, which has about seven thousand people, long had its chief source of prosperity in the influx of sight-seers, but it has recently developed into an important industrial centre through the establishment of large works utilizing the power of the falls by means of electricity. Some distance above the cataract on the American side a tunnel starts, of which the outlet is just below the American fall. This tunnel is one hundred and sixty-five feet below the river surface at the initial point, and pa.s.ses about two hundred feet beneath the town, being over a mile long. Part of the waters of the Upper Rapids are diverted to the head of the tunnel, and by falling through deep shafts upon turbine wheels the water-power is utilized for dynamos, and in this way an enormous force is obtained from the electricity, which is used in various kinds of manufacturing, for trolley roads and other purposes, some of the power being conducted to Buffalo. A similar method is to be availed of on the Canadian side. It is estimated that in various ways the Niagara Falls furnish fully four hundred thousand horse-power for industrial uses, and the amount constantly increases. The largest dynamos in the world, and the most complete electrical adaptations of power are installed at these Niagara works.

But the history of Niagara has not been always scenic and industrial.

In 1763 occurred the horrible ma.s.sacre of the "Devil's Hole,"

alongside the gorge of the Lower Rapids, when a band of Senecas ambushed a French commissary train with an escort, the whole force but two, who escaped, being killed, while reinforcements, hurried from Lewiston at the sound of the muskets, were nearly all caught and tomahawked in a second ambush. Many of the victims were thrown alive from the cliffs into the boiling Niagara rapids, their horses and wagons being hurled down after them. There were repeated actions near Niagara in the War of 1812. In October, 1812, the battle of Queenston Heights was fought, the Americans storming the terrace and killing General Brock, the British commander, whose monument is erected there, but being finally defeated and most of them captured. There were various contests near by in 1813, and the battle of Chippewa took place above the falls on July 5, 1814, the British being defeated. On July 25th the battle of Lundy's Lane was fought just west of the falls, between sunset and midnight of a summer night, a contest with varying success and doubtful result, the noise of the conflict commingling with the roar of the cataract, and the dead of both armies being buried on the field, so that, in the words of Lossing, "the mighty diapason of the flood was their requiem."

"O'er Huron's wave the sun was low, The weary soldier watched the bow Fast fading from the cloud below The das.h.i.+ng of Niagara.

"And while the phantom chained his sight Ah! little thought he of the fight,-- The horrors of the dreamless night, That posted on so rapidly."

Thus majestically wrote Mrs. Sigourney of this matchless cataract of Niagara:

"Flow on forever in thy glorious robe Of terror and of beauty. Yea, flow on, Unfathomed and resistless. G.o.d hath set His rainbow on thy forehead, and the cloud Mantled around thy feet. And He doth give Thy voice of thunder power to speak of Him Eternally--bidding the lip of man Keep silence, and upon thine altar pour Incense of awe-struck praise. Earth fears to lift The insect trump that tells her trifling joys, Or fleeting triumphs, 'mid the peal sublime Of thy tremendous hymn. Proud Ocean shrinks Back from thy brotherhood, and all his waves Retire abashed. For he hath need to sleep, Sometimes, like a spent laborer, calling home His boisterous billows from their vexing play, To a long, dreary calm: but thy strong tide Faints not, nor e'er with failing heart forgets Its everlasting lesson, night or day.

The morning stars, that hailed Creation's birth, Heard thy hoa.r.s.e anthem mixing with their song Jehovah's name; and the dissolving fires, That wait the mandate of the day of doom To wreck the Earth, shall find it deep inscribed Upon thy rocky scroll."

DESCENDING THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.

XIV.

DESCENDING THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.

The Great River of Canada -- Jacques Cartier -- The Great Lakes -- The Ancient Course -- The St. Lawrence Ca.n.a.ls -- Toronto -- Lake of the Thousand Islands -- Kingston -- Garden of the Great Spirit -- Clayton -- Frontenac -- Round Island -- Alexandria Bay -- Brockville -- Ogdensburg -- Prescott -- Galop, Plat and Long Sault Rapids -- Cornwall -- St. Regis -- Lake St. Francis -- Coteau, Split Rock, Cascades and Cedars Rapids -- Lake St.

Louis -- Lachine -- Caughnawaga -- Lachine Rapids -- Montreal -- St. Mary's Current -- St. Helen's Island -- Montreal Churches and Religious Houses -- Hochelaga -- First Religious Colonization -- Dauversiere and Olier -- Society of Notre Dame de Montreal -- Maisonneuve -- Mademoiselle Mance -- Marguerite Bourgeoys -- Madame de la Peltrie -- The Accommodation -- Victoria Tubular Bridge -- Seminary of St. Sulpice -- Hotel Dieu -- The Black Nuns -- The Gray Nunnery -- McGill University -- Place d'Armes -- Church of Notre Dame -- Cathedral of St.

Peter -- Notre Dame de Lourdes -- Christ Church Cathedral -- Champ de Mars -- Notre Dame de Bonsecours -- Rapids of St. Anne -- Lake of the Two Mountains -- Trappists -- Mount Royal -- Ottawa River -- Long Sault Rapids -- Thermopylae -- Louis Joseph Papineau -- Riviere aux Lievres -- The Habitan -- The Metis -- Ottawa -- Bytown -- Chaudiere Falls -- Rideau Ca.n.a.l -- Dominion Government Buildings -- Richelieu River -- Lake St. Peter -- St. Francis River -- Three Rivers -- Shawanagan Fall -- St.

Augustin -- Sillery -- Quebec -- Stadacona -- Samuel de Champlain -- Montmagny -- Laval de Montmorency -- Jesuit Missionaries -- Father Davion -- The French Gentilhomme -- Cape Diamond -- Charles Dilke -- Henry Ward Beecher -- Castle of St.

Louis -- Quebec Citadel -- Wolfe-Montcalm Monument -- General Montgomery -- Plains of Abraham -- General Wolfe -- The Basilica -- The Seminary -- English Cathedral -- Bishop Mountain -- The Ursulines -- Marie Guyart -- Montcalm's Skull -- Hotel Dieu -- Fathers Brebeuf and Lalemont and their Martyrdom -- Notre Dame des Victoires -- Dufferin Terrace -- Point Levis -- Beauport -- French Cottages -- Faith of the Habitans -- Cardinal Newman -- Falls of Montmorency -- La Bonne Sainte Anne -- Isle of Orleans -- St. Laurent and St. Pierre -- The Laurentides -- Cape Tourmente -- Bay of St. Paul -- Mount Eboulements -- Murray Bay -- Kamouraska -- Riviere du Loup -- Cacouna -- Tadousac -- Saguenay River -- Grand Discharge and Little Discharge -- Ha Ha Bay -- Chicoutimi -- Capes Trinity and Eternity -- Restigouche Region -- Micmac Indians -- Glooscap -- Lorette -- Roberval -- Lake St. John -- Montaignais Indians -- Trois Pistoles -- Rimouski -- Gaspe -- Notre Dame Mountains -- Labrador -- Grand Falls -- The Fishermen.

THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA.

"The first time I beheld thee, beauteous stream, How pure, how smooth, how broad thy bosom heav'd!

What feelings rushed upon my heart!--a gleam As of another life my kindling soul received."

Thus sang Maria Brooks to the n.o.ble river St. Lawrence, which the earlier geographers always called "the Great River of Canada." The first adventurous white man who crossed the seas and found it was the intrepid French navigator, Jacques Cartier, who sailed into its broad bay on the festival day of the martyred Saint Lawrence, in 1534. When this bold explorer started from France on his voyage of discovery he was fired with religious zeal. St. Malo, on the coast of Brittany, was then the chief French seaport, and before departing, the entire company of officers and sailors piously attended a solemn High Ma.s.s in the old Cathedral, and in the presence of thousands received the venerable Archbishop's blessing upon their enterprise. Cartier, like all the rest of the early discoverers, was sent under the auspices of the French Government to hunt for the "Northwest Pa.s.sage," the short route from Europe to the Indies, or, as described in his instructions, to seek "the new road to Cathay." The Church naturally bestowed its most earnest benisons upon an enterprise promising unlimited religious expansion in the realms France might secure across the Atlantic.

Carrier's chief s.h.i.+p was only of one hundred and twenty tons, but the little fleet crossed the ocean in safety, and on July 9th entered a large bay south of the St. Lawrence, encountering such intense heats that it was named the Bay de Chaleurs, being still thus called. After an extensive examination of the neighboring coasts and bays, Cartier returned home, reporting that the Canadian summers were as warm as those of France, but giving no information of the extreme cold of the winters. This the sun-loving Gauls did not discover until later.

Cartier came back the next year, and sailed up what he had already named the "Great River," describing it as the most enormous in the world. The Indians told his wondering sailors "it goes so far that no man hath ever been to the end that they had heard." The explorers carefully examined the vast stream, its sh.o.r.es and branches, and were sure, as they reported, that its sombre tributary, the Saguenay, "comes from the Sea of Cathay, for in this place there issues a strong current, and there runs here a terrible tide." They saw numerous whales and other sea-monsters, but found the water too deep for soundings, and in fact the river St. Lawrence cannot be sounded for one hundred and fifty miles up from its mouth.

ITS VAST EXTENT AND FEATURES.

The St. Lawrence is an enormous river, having much the largest estuary of any river on the globe, the tidal current flowing five hundred miles up the stream, and its mouth spreading ninety-six miles wide. It is the outlet of the greatest body of fresh water in existence, draining seven vast lakes--Nepigon, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario and Champlain--besides myriads of smaller ones, including the Central New York lakes, hundreds in the Adirondack forests, and thousands in the vast Canadian wilderness. The St. Lawrence basin covers a territory of over four hundred thousand square miles, and has been computed as containing more than half the fresh water on the planet. The main St. Lawrence river is seven hundred and fifty miles long from Lake Ontario to the head of the Gulf, while the total length of the whole system of lakes and rivers is over two thousand miles, and has been computed by some patient mathematician to contain a ma.s.s of fresh water equal to twelve thousand cubic miles, of which one cubic mile goes over Niagara Falls every week. The early geographers usually located the head of the system in Lake Nepigon, north of Superior, but it is thought the longer line to the ocean is from the source of St. Louis River, flowing through Minnesota into the southwestern extremity of Lake Superior at Duluth. The bigness of the wonderful St. Lawrence is shown in everything about it. Th.o.r.eau, who was such a keen observer, has written that this great river rises near another "Father of Waters," the Mississippi, and "issues from a remarkable spring, far up in the woods, fifteen hundred miles in circ.u.mference," called Lake Superior, while "it makes such a noise in its tumbling down at one place (Niagara) as is heard all round the world." The geologists, however, who usually upturn most things, declare that it did not always reach the sea as now. Originally the St. Lawrence, they say, flowed into the ocean by going out through the Narrows in New York harbor, and its immense current broke the pa.s.sage through the West Point Highlands in a mighty stream, compared with which the present Hudson River is a pigmy. Professor Newberry writes that during countless ages this enormous river, which no human eyes beheld, carried off the surplus waters of a great drainage area with a rapid current cutting down its gorge many hundred feet in depth, reaching from the Lake Superior basin to the Narrows, where it dispersed in a vast delta, debouching upon a sea then much lower in level than now, and having its sh.o.r.e-line about eighty miles southeast of New York. By some stupendous convulsion this channel was changed, drift banked up the old valley of the Mohawk, and the outflow was deflected from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario into the present shallow and rocky channel, filled with islands and rapids, followed by the St. Lawrence down to Montreal.

The system of navigable water ways from Duluth and Port Arthur on Lake Superior to the Strait of Belle Isle is twenty-two hundred miles long.

At Lake Ontario the head of the St. Lawrence River is two hundred and thirty-one feet above the sea level, and its current descends that distance to tidewater chiefly by going down successive rapids. There are s.h.i.+p ca.n.a.ls around these rapids and around Niagara Falls, and also connecting various lakes above. The Sault Sainte Marie locks and ca.n.a.ls, at the outlet of Lake Superior, have already been described.

The admirable systems conducting navigation around the rapids in the river below Lake Ontario also carry a large tonnage. Between Ogdensburg and Montreal, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles, the navigation of forty-three miles is through six ca.n.a.ls of various lengths around the rapids, each having elaborate locks. The Gulf of St. Lawrence is also constructed upon an enormous scale, covering eighty thousand square miles, and with the lower river having a tidal ebb and flow of eighteen to twenty-four feet. The mouth of the river and head of the Gulf are usually located at Cape Chatte, far below the Saguenay, and from the Cape almost up to Quebec the river is ten to thirty miles wide. In front of Quebec it narrows to less than a mile, while above, the width is from one to two and a half miles to Montreal, expanding to ten miles at Lake St. Peter, where the tidal influence ceases. Above Montreal the river occasionally expands into lakes, but is generally a broad and strongly flowing stream with frequent rapids. The largest ocean vessels freely ascend to Montreal, at the head of s.h.i.+p navigation, Lachine rapids being just above the city. For several months in winter, however, ice prevents.

THE CITY OF TORONTO.

Lake Ontario, out of which the river St. Lawrence flows, is nearly two hundred miles long, and in some places seventy miles wide. It has generally low sh.o.r.es and but few islands, and the name given it by Champlain was Lake St. Louis, after the King of France. The original Indian name, however, has since been retained, Ontario meaning "how beautiful is the rock standing in the water." Three well-known Canadian cities are upon its sh.o.r.es--Hamilton at the western end, Toronto on the northern coast, and Kingston near the eastern end.

Hamilton is a busy, industrial and commercial city of fifty thousand people, having a good harbor. The great port, however, is Toronto, with over two hundred thousand inhabitants, the capital of the Province of Ontario, and the headquarters of the Scottish and Irish Protestants, who settled and rule Upper Canada, the richest and most populous province of the Dominion. Toronto means "the place of meeting," and the word was first heard in the seventeenth century as applied to the country of the Hurons, between Lakes Huron and Simcoe, the name being afterwards given to the Indian portage route, starting from Lake Ontario, in the present city limits, over to that country.

Here, in 1749, the French established a small trading-post, Fort Rouille, but there was no settlement to speak of for a century or more. The United Empire Loyalists, under General Simcoe, founded the present city in 1793 under the name of York, and it was made the capital of Upper Canada, of which Simcoe was Governor. The location was an admirable one. The portage led up a romantic little stream, now called Humber River, while out in front was an excellent harbor, protected by a long, low, forest-clad island, making a perfect land-locked basin, sheltered from the storms of the lake. The nucleus of a town was thus started on a tract of marshy land, adjoining the Humber, familiarly known for nearly a half century as "Muddy Little York," which characteristic a part of the city still retains, as the pedestrian in falling weather can testify. Yet the site is a pleasing one--two little rivers, the Humber and the Don, flowing down to the lake through deep and picturesque ravines, having the city between and along them, while there is a gradual slope upward to an elevation of two hundred feet and over at some distance inland, an ancient terrace, which was the bank of the lake.

The town did not grow much at first, and during the War of 1812 it was twice captured by the Americans, but they could not hold it long. As the back country was settled and lake navigation afterwards developed, however, the harbor became of importance and the city grew, being finally incorporated as Toronto. Then it got a great impetus and became known as the "Queen City," its geographical advantages as a centre of railway as well as water routes attracting a large immigration, so that it has grown to be the second city in Canada, and its people hope it may outstrip Montreal and become the first. It has achieved a high rank commercially, and in religion and education, so that there are substantial grounds for the claim, often made, that it is the "Boston of Canada." It contains a church for about every thousand inhabitants, Sunday is observed with great strictness, and it has in the University of Toronto the chief educational foundation in the Dominion, and in the _Toronto Globe_ the leading organ of Canadian Liberalism. The city spreads for eight miles along the lake sh.o.r.e; the streets are laid out at right angles, and there are many fine buildings. Yonge Street, dividing the city, stretches northward from the harbor forty miles inland to the sh.o.r.e of Lake Simcoe. There are attractive residential streets, with many ornate dwellings in tasteful gardens. St. James' Cathedral, near Yonge Street, is a fine Early English structure, with a n.o.ble clock and a grand spire rising three hundred and sixteen feet. There is a new City Hall, an enormous Romanesque building with an impressive tower, and Osgoode Hall, the seat of the Ontario Superior Courts, in Italian Renaissance, its name being given from the first Chief Justice of Upper Canada. In Queen's Park are the ma.s.sive Grecian buildings of the Provincial Parliament, finished in 1892 at a cost of $1,500,000. This Park contains a bronze statue of George Brown, long a leading Canadian statesman, and a monument erected in memory of the men who fell in repelling the Fenian invasion of 1866.

The buildings of the University of Toronto, to the westward of the Queen's Park, are extensive and form a magnificent architectural group. The main building is Norman, with a ma.s.sive central tower, rebuilt in 1890, after having been burnt. There are fifteen hundred students, and the University offers complete courses in the arts and sciences, law and medicine. To the northward is McMaster Hall, a Baptist theological college, tastefully constructed and liberally endowed. From the top of the tall University tower there is an admirable view over the city and far across the lake. The town spreads broadly out on either hand, running down to the harbor, beyond which is the narrow streak made by the low-lying island enclosing it.

Far to the southward stretch the sparkling waters of Ontario, reaching to the horizon, while in the distance can be seen a faint little silver cloud of spray rising from Niagara. In the northern background villas dot the green and wooded hillsides, showing how the city spreads, while in every direction the incomplete buildings and the gentle distant noises of the builder's hammer and trowel testify to its robust growth. Many steamers move about the harbor, and among them are the ferry-boats carrying crowds over to the low-lying island, with its many amus.e.m.e.nt places, the city's great recreation ground. At Hanlon's Point, its western end, was long the home of Hanlon, the "champion sculler of the world," one of Toronto's celebrities.

THE LAKE OF THE THOUSAND ISLANDS.

Out of Ontario the great river St. Lawrence flows one hundred and seventy-two miles down to Montreal, being for much of the distance the boundary between the United States and Canada. Kingston, with twenty-five thousand people, guarded by picturesque graystone batteries and martello towers--the "Limestone City"--stands at the head of the river where it issues from the lake. To the westward is the entrance of the s.p.a.cious Bay of Quinte, and on the eastern side the terminus of the Rideau Ca.n.a.l, leading northeastward to the Rideau River and Ottawa, the Canadian capital. This was originally the French Fort Cataraqui, established at the mouth of Cataraqui River in 1672, the name being subsequently changed by Count Frontenac to Frontenac.

The Indian word Cataraqui means "Clay bank rising from the water," and after the fort was built the meaning changed to "fort rising from the water." Here the Sieur de La Salle, in 1678, built the first vessel navigating the lake. The British captured the fort in 1762, naming it Kingston, after the American Revolution, and by fortifying the promontories commanding the harbor, made it the strongest military post in Canada after Quebec and Halifax, the chief work being Fort Henry. Its garrisons have been long withdrawn, however, and now the old-time forts are useful chiefly as additions to the attractive scenery of its harbor and approaches. At the outlet of Ontario the course of the St. Lawrence begins with the noted archipelago known as the "Lake of the Thousand Islands," there being actually about seventeen hundred of them. This is a remarkable formation, composed largely of fragments of the range of Laurentian mountains, here coming southward out of Canada to the river, producing an extraordinary region. This Laurentian formation the geologists describe as the oldest land in the world--"the first rough sketch and axis of America." During countless ages this range has been worn down by the effect of rain, frost, snow and rivers, and scratched and broken by rough, resistless glaciers, and we are told that, compared with these fragmentary "Thousand Islands" and the almost worn-out mountains of the lower St. Lawrence basin, the Alps and the Andes are but creations of yesterday.

Wolfe Island broadly obstructs the Ontario outlet between Kingston and Cape Vincent on the New York sh.o.r.e, and from them, with an island-filled channel, in some places twelve miles broad, the swift river current threads the archipelago by pleasant and tortuous pa.s.sages nearly to Ogdensburg, forty miles below. These islands are of all sizes, shapes and appearance, varying from small low rocks and gaunt crags to gorgeous foliage-covered gardens. On account of their large numbers, the early French explorers named them "Les Milles Isles," and in the ancient chronicles they are described as "obstructing navigation and mystifying the most experienced Iroquois pilots." Fenimore Cooper located some of the most interesting incidents of his _Pathfinder_ in "that labyrinth of land and water, the Thousand Isles." The larger islands in spring and summer are generally covered with luxuriant vegetation, and the river sh.o.r.es are a delicious landscape of low but bold bluffs and fruitful fields spreading down to the water, with distant forests bounding the horizon. The atmosphere is usually dry, light and mellow, and the Indians, who admired this attractive region, appropriately called it Manatoana, or the "Garden of the Great Spirit." Howe Island adjoins Wolfe Island, and below is the long Grindstone Island. Here on the New York sh.o.r.e is the village of Clayton, where the New York Central Railroad comes up from Utica and Rome, the leading route to this region. Below is the almost circular Round Island with its large hotel, and everywhere are charming little islets, while ahead, down the St. Lawrence, are myriads more islands, apparently ma.s.sed together in a maze of dark green distant foliage, the enchanted isles of a fascinating summer sea:

"The Thousand Isles, the Thousand Isles, Dimpled, the wave around them smiles, Kissed by a thousand red-lipped flowers, Gemmed by a thousand emerald bowers.

A thousand birds their praises wake, By rocky glade and plumy brake.

A thousand cedars' fragrant shade Falls where the Indians' children played, And Fancy's dream my heart beguiles While singing of thee, Thousand Isles.

"There St. Lawrence gentlest flows, There the south wind softest blows.

t.i.tian alone hath power to paint The triumph of their patron saint Whose waves return on memory's tide; La Salle and Piquet, side by side, Proud Frontenac and bold Champlain There act their wanderings o'er again; And while the golden sunlight smiles, Pilgrims shall greet thee, Thousand Isles."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _In the Thousand Islands, St. Lawrence_]