the same objects, or about half a million sterling, according to the
statement of Mr. Whittlesey of Ohio. But that government is actually
stirring in another matter, which is of immense future importance,
although it appears trivial at this moment, and that is the opening up
of Lake Superior, where a new world offers itself.

They have projected a ship-canal round, or rather by the side of the
rapids of St. Marie. The length of this canal is said to be only, in
actual cutting, three-quarters of a mile, and the whole expense
necessary not more than 230,000 dollars, or about L55,000 sterling.

The British government should look in time to this; it owns the other
side of the Sault St. Marie, and the Superior country is so rich in
timber and minerals that it is called the Denmark of America, whilst a
direct access hereafter to the Oregon territory and the Pacific must be
opened through the vast chain of lakes towards the Rocky Mountains by
way of Selkirk Colony, on the Red River.

The lakes of Canada have not engaged that attention at home which they
ought to have had; and there is much interesting information about them
which is a dead letter in England.

Their rise and fall is a subject of great interest. The great sinking of
the levels of late years, which has become so visible and so injurious
to commerce, deserves the most attentive investigation. The American
writers attribute it to various causes, and there are as many theories
about it as there are upon all hidden mysteries. Evaporation and
condensation, woods and glaciers, have all been brought into play.

If the lakes are supplied by their own rivers, and by the drainage
streams of the surrounding forests, and all this is again and again
returned into them from the clouds, whence arises the sudden elevation
or the sudden depression of such enormous bodies of water, which have
no tides?

The Pacific and the Atlantic cannot be the cause; we must seek it
elsewhere. To the westward of Huron, on the borders of Superior, the
land is rocky and elevated; but it attains only enormous altitudes at
such a distance on the rocky Andean chain as to render it improbable
that those mountains exert immediate influences on the lakes. The
Atlantic also is too far distant, and very elevated land intervenes to
intercept the rising vapours. On the north, high lands also exist; and
the snows scarcely account for it, as the whole of North America near
these inland seas is alike cov