ed to
light a neighboring mill. Salt springs are also numerous; gypsum is
obtained in large quantities, with pipe and potter's clay; yellow ocher
sometimes occurs; and there are many kinds of valuable building stones.
It is gathered from the Indians that there are incipient volcanoes in
several parts of these regions, particularly toward the Chippewa hunting
grounds.

The soil of Lower Canada is generally fertile; about Quebec it is light
and sandy in some parts, in others it is a mixture of loam and clay.
Above the Richelieu Rapids, where the great valley of the St. Lawrence
begins to widen, the low lands consist of a light and loose dark earth,
with ten or twelve inches of depth, lying on a stratum of cold clay, all
apparently of alluvial formation. Along the banks of the Ottawa there is
a great extent of rich alluvial soil; each year develops large districts
of fertile land, before unknown. The soils of Upper Canada are various;
brown clay and loam, intermixed with marl, predominates, particularly in
the rich district between the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa: north of
Ontario it is more clayey and extremely fertile. A rich black mold
prevails in the district between Lakes Ontario and Erie. There is in
this upper country an almost total absence of stone or gravel for
building and other common purposes. So great is the fertility of the
soil in Canada, that fifty bushels of wheat an acre are frequently
produced, even where the stumps of trees still occupy a considerable
portion of the ground: near Toronto one hundred bushels of wheat have
been grown upon a single acre, and in some districts the land has
yielded rich crops of that grain for twenty successive years, without
being manured.

The quality of the soil in wild lands may be known by the timber growing
upon it. Hard-wood trees, those that shed their leaves during winter,
show the best indication, such as maple, bass-wood, elm, black walnut,
hickory, butternut, iron-wood, hemlock, and a giant species of nettle.
A mixture of beech is good, but where it stands alone the soil is
generally light. Oak is uncertain as an indication, being found on
various bottoms. Soft or evergreen wood, such as pine, fir, larch, and
others of the species, are considered decisive of a very light soil. The
larch or tamarack on wide, flat plains, indicates sand upon a substratum
of marly clay, which the French Canadians hold in high estimation. It
is, however, right to add, that some ver