ths, or from
February to August, in paroxysms of half an hour each, and although it
extended over a range of country, 600 miles in length by 300 in
breadth, not a single human being was destroyed. Beyond question this
earthquake altered entirely the features of the country from Montreal
to the sea; but, that it did not produce that rent, as some will have
it, through which the Saguenay flows, is evident from the fact that the
Saguenay existed on Cartier's first visit. It did not even produce
those numerous islands with which the Lower St. Lawrence is studded,
for some of them are also mentioned by the same daring and skilful
navigator. But for the sake of science it is to be regretted that the
particular rivers, whose beds were changed or which were entirely
obliterated, have not been mentioned. The greater depth of the Saguenay
than the St. Lawrence is easily accounted for by the greater height of
the banks of the one river than of the other. In the St. Lawrence a
large body of water finds an outlet through a chain of mountains
forming the banks of a river which is the outlet of a series of lakes
or inland seas, in which the rains or snows of a great part of North
America are collected, as the Caspian, the Sea of Azof, and the Euxine
are the rain basins of Europe and of Asia, and which spreads its waters
over breadths of land, great or small, as its shores are steep or
otherwise. If Canada is high above the ocean, and on that, as well as
on other accounts, intensely cold in winter, it is some consolation to
know that that latitude, which is in some sense to be regretted, has
produced a river and lake navigation for sea-going ships of upwards of
a thousand miles, more valuable than ten thousands of miles of
prairie-land. A prairie country might have produced a Mississippi
filled with snags, but only a mountainous country could produce such
rivers for navigation as the Saguenay and St. Lawrence, and such rivers
for manufacturing purposes as the St. Maurice and the Ottawa. But
Canada is not all mountainous. There are vast steppes, extensive
plains, through which numerous streams roll sluggishly into the great
lakes. There are tracts of country of extraordinary extent capable of
producing the heaviest crops. There are garden lands around most of the
western cities, on which these cities of yesterday subsist and have
arisen. And even in Lower Canada there are straths of wonderful
fertility. Canada, with any government which