blished somewhere nearly equidistant to Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Huron, and considered the spot named London the most appropriate. There is a large delta at the upper end of Lake St. Clair, which appears to be increasing; and through which, by several channels, the river issues. Near this Lord Selkirk began his settlement named Baldoon. The situation is low and marshy, and great numbers of the first settlers were carried off. On the east or American bank stands old Fort St. Clair; and a few miles farther up where Lake Huron opens, Fort Gratiat was erected to command the river. On the eastern shores of Lake Huron the Canada Company's principal tract of land lies nearly in a triangular form, commencing in latitude 43°, and extending about sixty miles along the coast. The Canada Company have opened roads in various directions through their lands; and at the mouth of the Maitland, where it joins Lake Huron, the town of Goderich has been founded. In the space of eight years has this territory, previously untrodden, except by Indians, furriers, and wild beasts, been rapidly opened and settled by the energies and means of a company removing those disheartening obstacles, which, in the wilderness, and particularly in a remote region, require the best part of a man's life to surmount by individual exertion alone. Beyond Goderich, if we except one or two military stations, the posts of the Hudson Bay Company, and the small settlements which have arisen from Lord Selkirk's foundation at Red River, the vast regions from Lake Huron to the Pacific are all still in primeval wilderness, and still to be inhabited and cultivated by Europeans. That emigration from the east will subdue, inhabit, and cultivate the far western wilderness is not to be doubted. We have only to reflect on the progress made by Europeans, in defiance of the most formidable difficulties, in penetrating and subduing the wilderness, from the time the first permanent settlement was formed at James River to the present day, to agree with the following observations which I extracted from a paper printed at Buffalo. "The Far West' - where is the west, and what are its bounds? But a few years have passed since our thriving town (then a rude hamlet) stood upon the further confines of the rising west. Still beyond there did indeed exist an ideal realm of future greatness-a matted and mighty forest, but 'clouds and thick darkness rested on it.' Here and there it was dotted with a settlement of whites, clustered together for mutual assistance and mutual defence. These were few, and far between,' and still beyond, and deeper sunk in the murky shadows of the wilderness, roamed the border band of lawless and outlawed whites - a race of men found only upon the line of frontier territory, between savage and civilised life, to neither of which they have any affinity, and whose anomalous character, rejecting the virtues of either, embodies in one the vices of both. " But the solitude has been penetrated, the forest has been overwhelmed by the towering wave of emigration. That wave but recently spent its utmost fury, ere it reached even here, and its last and dying ripple was wont to fall gently at our feet; but not so now: it has risen above - it has swept over us, and while its mighty deluge is yet rushing past in one undiminished current, the roar of its swelling ! ve ac the tis surges, repeated by each babbling echo, is still wafted back to us upon every western breeze. Ours is no longer a western settlement; our children are surrounded by the comforts, the blessings, and the elegances of life, where their fathers found only hardship, privation, and want. The westward' is onward, still onward, - but where? Even the place that was known as such but yesterday, to-morrow shall be known so no more. The tall forest, the prowling beast, and "The Stoic of the woods - the man without a tear,' are alike borne down, trampled and destroyed by this everlasting scramble for the west. This course of empire may, must be stayed, when the shore of the Pacific has been reached, and the intermediate distance reclaimed and populated. But before these are effected, how mighty must be the growth of our republic! Already the annual tourist, who was wont to exhaust all his rambling desires in reaching the Falls,' disdains so slight an excursion; he must visit the west,' and Green Bay or Fort Winnebago is now his resting-place. Another year and even these will be left behind, and the ever-receding west must be pursued over succeeding rivers, and mountains, and plains, until the 'western tour' shall terminate, by necessity, at the mouth of the Oregon." CHAP. XI. LAKE HURON. GEORGIA BAY. - MAKILLIMAKINAK. - MICHI- LAKE Huron is 250 miles long, 120 broad, and 860 feet deep, without comprehending a branch of it called Georgia Bay, which is 120 miles long, and fifty miles broad. Near the head of the latter at Pentagushine, there is a small naval depôt. It receives several rivers. The Severn, flowing over a rocky bed from Lake Simcoe; the Maitland, at the mouth of which is the town and harbour of Godrich, and which flows through the Huron tract; the river Moon, flowing from lakes lying between the Georgian Bay and the Ottawa; and the French River, a large stream flowing from Lake Nippissing, which a very narrow portage divides from a rapid river falling into the Ottawa. This was formerly the grand route of the north-west voyageurs. The lands on the east and west coasts are generally fit for cultivation, and covered with heavy timber, presenting clay cliffs, rocks, and woody slopes along the shore. The north coast exhibits a rugged, formidable, and barren aspect. The Cloche mountains are behind this shore, and very little is known of the interior. A multitude of islands, called the Manitoulins, or Islands of Spirits, extend from the northern extre mity of Georgian Bay, to the détour between the continent and Drummond's Island. The largest of these is eighty miles long. The Indians attach a religious veneration to them, as being consecrated by the great spirit, Manitou. Through the Strait of Makillimakinak, the fort of which the Americans claim, the navigation to Lake Michigan is deep and safe. This lake is within the United States' boundary. It is, without including Green Bay, a branch of it, 400 miles long, and fifty broad; and Green Bay is 105 miles long, and twenty miles broad: both are on a level with Lake Huron. The Michigan territory, lying between Lake Huron, the River Detroit, and Lake Michigan, is a valuable and extensive region, in which settlements forming with extraordinary rapidity. are The passage to Lake Superior, by the strait of St. Mary, 40 miles long, is interrupted by the rapids or falls of St. Mary, which occur about mid-distance between both lakes. The appellation of fall is, however, improper. About midway between both lakes, the banks of the strait contracts the channel, which also descends, altogether, in the course of the rapid, about twenty-three feet, and the vast discharge of Lake Superior rolling along impetuously over and against natural irregularities, renders the navigation upwards altogether impracticable. Canoes have descended, but the exploit is hazardous. A canal two miles long would avoid this rapid, and connect the navigation of Lake Superior with that of Lake Huron, and Michigan and Erie. Lake Superior, the great source of the St. Lawrence, is about 360 geographical or 417 statute miles long, and 140 geographical or 162 statute miles broad; |