may lead to the adoption of better and more convenient regulations.*

His Majesty's customs for the port of Quebec controls the entries at all the ports of the province. The officers at Quebec are, the collector, controller, surveyor, naval officer, three clerks, four searchers, and waiters, tide-surveyor, two tidesmen, admeasurer of ships, warehouse-keeper, locker, and messenger. At Montreal there are three officers: the surveyor, waiter, and searcher, and tide-surveyors. At St. John's, Lake Champlain, there are a collector, controller, gauger, and two land-waiters. At Côteau du Lac there are a collector and a controller; at Sherbrooke, and at Nouvelle Beauce, there is at each a collector; and at Gaspè, New Carlisle, and Magdalene Islands, there is at each place a sub-collector. There are land-waiters at Lacole, Compton, and Stanstead; and inspectors of merchandise, scows, and rafts, at Chateauguy and Côteau du Lac. Before all the fees were abolished, and salaries established, the incomes of the officers of the customs, that of the collector in particular, were enormous; and the merchants of Quebec addressed the Treasury afterwards, complaining of the illegal exaction of fees by the collector, for which he was prosecuted in the Court of King's Bench; and the legislature passed several resolutions, charging him with illegally retaining 64247. of the monies collected at the customs. The fees of the Court of Vice-admiralty are also considered just causes of complaint.

CHAP. XIV.

CONFIGURATION AND GENERAL ASPECT OF CANADA. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. - ORGANIC REMAINS. - STEPS. - MINERALOGY. - WESTERN REGION. - ROCKY MOUNTAINS, CLIMATE, ETC.

CANADA may be said to present the most extraordinary and grand configuration of any country in the world. From the eastern extremity of this vast region, rising abruptly out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Rocky Mountains, the natural features of its lands and waters exhibit romantic sublimities and picturesque beauties, amidst the variety and grandeur of which the imagination wanders, and loses itself, luxuriating among boundless forests, magnificent rivers, vast chains of mountains, immense lakes, extensive prairies, and roaring cataracts.

The mind, on sailing up the St. Lawrence, is occupied under impressions, and with ideas, as varied as they are great and interesting. The ocean-like width of this mighty river where it joins the gulf, the great distance (about 2500 miles) between its vast débouché and the source of the most westerly of its streams, -- the numerous lakes, cataracts, and rivers, which form its appendages, - the wide and important regions, exhibiting mountains, valleys, forests, plains, and savannahs, which border on these innumerable lakes and rivers, their natural resources, - their discovery and settlement, and the vast

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field thrown open in consequence for the enterprise, industry, and capital of mankind, are subjects so great, and so fertile in materials for speculative theories, as well as practical undertakings and gainful pursuits, that the imagination strives in vain to create an empire so grand and powerful as that to which the energy of succeeding generations will likely raise a country possessed of such vast and splendid capabilities as those of the Canadas. *

The natural aspect, configuration, and geological structure of Canada, exhibit the greatest diversity of appearance.

On the south side of the St. Lawrence, from Gaspè to some miles above Point Levi, opposite Quebec, the whole country presents high mountains, valleys, and forests. These mountains appear as high as any of the Alleghany chain, of which range they form a part.

Their altitude has not, however, been ascertained. I have seen various parts of their outline and summits rising in the interior, when I was on the sea, at least a hundred miles distant. The prevailing rocks are granite, in vast strata, but sometimes in boulders between the mountains and the shore; greywacke and clay slate also occur, with limestone occasionally; and various other rocks, usually detached, present themselves. The mountains and valleys are thickly wooded: the soil is generally very productive along the banks of the St. Lawrence; and, in the valleys of the interior, according to the usual indications of fertility, equally fit for cultivation. The lower islands of the St. Lawrence are mere inequalities of the vast granite strata which occasionally protrude over the level of the river. The Kamouraska Islands, and the Penguins, in particular, exhibit this appearance; and in the parish of Kamouraska and St. Anne huge masses of granite rise into sharp conical hills, one of which is 500 feet high, with smooth sides, and scarcely a fissure. The mountain of St. Anne is lofty and imposing. Its ascent is rugged and picturesque.

At St. Roch the post-road leads for more than a mile under a perpendicular ridge of granite, 300 feet high.

The north coast of the St. Lawrence, below Quebec, exhibits trap rocks, clay slate, various detached rocks, and granite occasionally; the latter is considered to prevail in the interior country, and particularly as forming the base of the mountains of Labrador, and of the country north of Quebec. Cape Tourment, thirty miles from Quebec, is a round massive granite mountain, about 1000 feet high, and a ramification of the rugged interior chain. The lands situated on the north shores of the St. Lawrence, below the River Saguenay, are not near so high as those on the south coast; but their features are remarkably rugged and forbidding, and apparently nowhere fit for cultivation. Numerous small rapid rivers, plentifully frequented by salmon, roll from the mountains over rugged channels, or foam over precipices, into the St. Lawrence.

Except in the bogs or marshes, rocks obtrude between the trees over all parts of the surface. Although the country is generally covered with wood, yet the trees are far from attaining the size of those on the south coast. In various parts I observed extraordinary deep fissures, from six inches to two feet wide, and apparently many feet deep, dividing the rocks as if they had been cracked by the action of fire, or some volcanic shock: intense frost may have been the agent. In many places these fissures, hidden from view by various creeping shrubs, formed dangerous traps. The Indians have told me that they have seen some of these rents several miles in length, about a foot broad, and from forty to fifty feet deep..

As we approach Quebec, a reddish or dark clay slate appears as the prevailing rock, and it forms the bed of the St. Lawrence to Kingston and Niagara. Boulders of granite, limestone, sandstone, syenite, trap, and marble, occur as detached rocks in the same extensive region.

Above the Rapids of Richelieu, where the mountains commence retreating to the south and north, a flat country prevails, until we reach Queenston Heights. The greater part of the soil of the low lands is apparently of alluvial formation; and twenty to fifty-five feet rise of the waters would nearly cover the whole country between the Alleghanies and the high lands of the north. The exceptions to this general rule are, the Beleoil mountain, the highest summit of which is about 1200 feet high. This mountain

VOL. II.