ays a pure air. Here the Aurora Borealis is seen in its
utmost glory. In summer there is scarcely any night; for the twilight
lasts until eleven o'clock, and the tokens of the returning sun are
visible two hours afterwards.

The extremes of civilized and savage life meet at St. Mary's; for here
live the educated European or American, and the pure heathen Red Man;
here steamboats and the birch canoe float side by side; and here
all-powerful Commerce is already recommencing a deadly rivalry between
the Briton and the American, not for furs and peltry, as in days gone
by, but for copper and for metals; and here a new world is about to be
opened, and that too very speedily.

Here are Indian agents and missionaries, with schools, both the English
and the United States' government considering the entrance to the Red
Man's country, whose gates are so narrow and still closed up, to be of
very great importance, both in a commercial and a political point of
view; but it is notorious that, after the French Canadians, the Red Man
prefers his Great Mother beyond the Great Lake and her subjects to the
President and the people, who are rather too near neighbours to be
pleasant, and who have somewhat unceremoniously considered the natives
of the soil as so many obstacles to their aggrandizement.

I shall end this sketch of the lakes, by a few observations upon the
magnetic phenomena regarding them, and respecting the variation of the
compass.

Fort Erie, near the eastern termination of Lake Erie, and close to the
Niagara river, presents the line of no variation; whilst at the town of
Niagara, on the south-west end of Lake Ontario, not more than thirty-six
miles from Fort Erie, the variation in 1832 was 1 deg. 20' east.

The line of no variation is marked distinctly on the best maps of
Canada, by the division line between the townships of Stamford and
Niagara, seven miles north of Niagara.

At Toronto in 43 deg. 39' north latitude, and 78 deg. 4' west longitude,
twenty-four miles north-east of Niagara, the variation in 1832 was more
than 2 deg. easterly.

The shore of Lake Huron at Nottawassaga Bay, forty miles north-west of
Toronto, is again the line of no variation.

Thus a magnetic meridian lies between Fort Erie and Nottawassaga.

A magnetic observatory is established by the Board of Ordnance at
Toronto, near the University, and placed in charge of two young officers
of artillery, which says a good deal for the scientific