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INDIAN-CORN WHISKY.

grain had hitherto been disposed of.

Cincinnati, in Ohio, of which I have spoken as the great centre of the packing business, is also the great centre of the whisky manufacture. It is the great whisky mart of the West, and probably larger stocks of whisky are to be found at one time in that city than in any other market in the world. The whole quantity produced by the distilleries of this city, or brought into it from more or less distant distilleries, is about 1000 barrels, of forty gallons each, per day, or 14,500,000 gallons in a year. The quantity shipped off in the state of whisky-chiefly down the Mississippi is estimated at 11,000,000 of gallons, while about 1,000,000 gallons more are converted into alcohol, and disposed of to the Atlantic States. All this whisky is manufactured from Indian corn; and even for the mashing, barley is not necessary, as sprouted Indian corn makes a malt as serviceable to the distiller as that from barley.

In Canada, which is not so much of an Indian-corn country, this grain is also used in the distilleries, although not so exclusively as in the Western States, where this grain is a drug. I had the opportunity of conversing with the intelligent and enterprising owner of a large distillery in the neighbourhood of Kingston, who informed me that he used chiefly rye and Indian corn, but sometimes pease also-all ground up together. Two bushels of barley malt were sufficient for a bushel of crushed rye-Indian corn requires four bushels to one. When barley is scarce, a larger proportion of rye can be used. I was most interested in the use of pease, which, from their composition, one would not expect to be well fitted either to give a good sample or a large return of spirit. He informed me, however, that the yield was tolerably good, but the quality inferior to that from Indian corn-the main objection being, that the spirit carries the flavour of the pea along with it.

PROSPECTS OF KINGSTON.

277

Though Kingston possesses, in its happy position, a certain assurance of great future prosperity, its progress was somewhat checked by the removal of the seat of Government to Montreal, upon the union of the provinces. Placed at the head of the navigation of the St Lawrence, at the junction of the Rideau Canal with Lake Ontario, and with direct access to the commerce of the States and upper lakes by steam-boats and railways, it will grow with the general growth of Canada, especially with the settlement of the basin of the Ottawa, and the increase of the carrying trade of the great river, till it will compete on at least equal terms with Rochester and Oswego, on the south side of the lake. It is not, as some fancy, feverish energy and over-speculation that are required, but a patient trust in the natural development of the resources of the country, and a prudent and cautious use of the new opportunities of advancing it which every succeeding year presents.

Sept. 22.-Leaving my kind and hospitable friends in Kingston, I embarked for Montreal at 7 A. M. We had neither rain nor fog in sailing among the Thousand Isles, but the absence of the sun robbed this part of the voyage of half its beauty. I was reminded of the Ten Thousand Islands of the Swedish Lake Maeler, and of the less numerous islets of our own Loch Lomond, as we glided rapidly down the stream; but not a gleam of sunshine descended to give the Canadian scenery the bright sparkle which I have seen lending so much joyfulness to these European lakes. A quiet beauty, nevertheless, suffused the river, and, with agreeable and instructive society on board, the day passed pleasantly. Darkness had already come on for more than an hour before we stopped for the night at Coteau-du-Lac, at the foot of Lake St Francis, and 160 miles below Kingston. We had, during the day, descended several rapids, which can only be passed by ascending vessels through the

278

RUNNING THE RAPIDS.

short canals which have been constructed for the purpose, near the banks of the river. But the most formidable of the river rapids were yet to come; and it was to obtain daylight for the passage of these that we pulled at the foot of Lake St Francis.

up

Sept. 23.-At four in the morning we were again under weigh, and most of the passengers on deck, to witness the running of the three formidable rapids, which occur within the next sixteen miles. The descent was very interesting. The rapid current, the often narrow channel, and the care in steering, all told of difficulty in the passages; and when one looked at the large ship, dodging, as it were, among the shallows and headlands, it appeared really wonderful that accidents should so rarely happen. At the foot of the cascades we entered Lake St Louis, where the Ontario from the north falls into the St Lawrence; and at seven we reached Lachine, in the island of Montreal. Here most of the passengers landed, and proceeded by railway nine miles to the city. The really dangerous rapids, however, were still below us, and as the boat was about to pass them, I and a few others remained on board, with the captain's permission, till the boat arrived at Montreal.

This was certainly the most striking part of the voyage; and it is one which a stranger visiting Montreal ought not to allow himself to be prevented from performing. Of the rapids between Lachine and Montreal the most formidable and dangerous, is that of the Sault St Louis. The descent of this rapid, in so large a vessel, created in my mind a feeling of surprise. In descending the Tobique, in my bark-canoe, with a single Indian polling and fending off, in quick and narrow and rocky rapids, I could not help admiring the nice tact, the instinctive perception as it were, with which a gentle touch of the pole on the threatening rock, at the proper moment, kept all safe. Here, on the St Lawrence, the

THE SAULT ST LOUIS.

279

same tact appeared, but with a greatly superior intellectual skill, in handling and guiding a large boat with a heavy cargo through a crooked channel, where the slightest oversight, for a single moment, would cast all upon the rocky shallows.

Let the reader fancy to himself a ledge of rocks running across the river, over which the water has a distinct fall-to the eye appearing to be somewhere between six and ten feet-into deep water below. Through this ledge is a narrow channel of deep water, where the rock has been torn away, and through which the river rushes with great velocity. Below this ledge, at a short distance, is a second ledge of rock, over which the water falls, and through which, as in the case of the first, a natural gap or sluice-way exists. Between these two ledges deep water exists, but the openings of the two are not opposite to each other, or in the same line. You must descend the one, then turn sharp in the deep water along the foot of the first ledge, and at the proper time turn sharp again to go through the other. The channel is a true zigzag, and to sail along this letter Z in the face of a strong current, and a heavy pressure of water, requires a degree of skill and coolness in the captain, and of mobility in the ship, which it requires a little consideration fully to realise. Four men at the wheel, and six at the tiller, to guard against accidents, steered us safely down; and it was beautiful to see with what graceful ease and exactness the prow of the long vessel turned itself to suit the sudden turns of the rocky channel. We reached Montreal about nine o'clock, soon after which, a pelting rain came on the first serious fall of rain I had yet encountered on the American continent.

The approach to Montreal from the river reminded me of the approach to Leith from the river Forth. The town of Montreal on the river bank, and the hill of

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METAMORPHIC LIMESTONE

Mont Royal rising behind with a faint resemblance to Arthur's Seat, sent the heart home to more familiar scenes, and almost secured beforehand for the strangercity an interest in its affections.

In descending the St Lawrence from Kingston, the somewhat naked and rocky limestone country of that part of Upper Canada continues, till we have passed the Thousand Isles. Below this the banks are less rocky, and most of the way down to Montreal consist of a light-coloured drift, which yields in general, I should think, only an indifferent soil. This drift rests upon, and is probably in great part formed from, the Potsdam sandstone and calciferous sand-rock of the New York geologists being the lowest portions of the Lower Silurian rocks. These rocks, where they occur in other parts of North America, produce in general inferior soils.

The most interesting geological fact, bearing upon the practice of agriculture, which fell under my observation in this part of my tour, is the occurrence over a large part of Canada of a deposit of metamorphic limestone, which is unusually rich in phosphate of lime. This limestone is subordinate to, and interstratified with, beds of porphyritic and syenitic gneiss, which form a long ridge of high-land, dipping beneath not only all the Silurian strata, but also under the copper-bearing beds of Lake Superior, which are beneath the Silurian. Both the limestone and the gneiss are probably highly altered members of the older Cambrian series.

This ridge of altered rocks extends, as a prolonged high-land, in a north-east and south-west direction, from the west of Labrador to the Ottowa, running nearly parallel to the St Lawrence, and at a distance north of that river of from twelve to twenty miles. Near Bytown on the Ottowa the limestone appears in great force, and from that point the ridge of mixed rocks ranges nearly due west to the shores of Lake Huron.