Canada and the Canadians
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Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle >> Canada and the Canadians
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A curious oily substance also pervades the waters in autumn, which
agglutinates the sand blown over it by the winds, and floats it about in
patches. I have never been able to discover the cause of this; perhaps,
it is petroleum, or the sand is magnetic iron. Singular currents and
differently coloured streams also appear, as on the ocean; but, as all
the lakes have a fall, no weed gathers, except in the stagnant bays.
The bottom of Ontario is unquestionably salt, and no wonder that it
should be so, for all the Canadian lakes were once a sea, and the
geological formation of the bed of Ontario is the saliferous rock.
I have often enjoyed on Ontario's shores, where I have usually resided,
the grand spectacle which takes place after intense frost. The early
morning then exhibits columns of white vapour, like millions of Geysers
spouting up to the sky, curling, twisting, shooting upwards, gracefully
forming spirals and pyramids, amid the dark ground of the sombre
heavens, and occasionally giving a peep of little lanes of the dark
waters, all else being shrouded in dense mist.
People at home are very apt to despise lakes, perhaps from the usual
insipidity of lake poetry, and to imagine that they can exhibit nothing
but very placid and tranquil scenery. Lake Erie, the shallowest of the
great Canadian fresh-water seas, very soon convinces a traveller to the
contrary; for it is the most turbulent and the most troublesome sea I
ever embarked upon--a region of vexed waters, to which the Bermoothes of
Shakespeare is a trifle; for that is bad enough, but not half so
treacherous and so thunder-stormy as Erie.
Huron is an ocean, when in its might; its waves and swells rival those
of the Atlantic; and the beautiful Ontario, like many a lovely dame, is
not always in a good temper. I once crossed this lake from Niagara to
Toronto late in November, in the Great Britain, a steamer capable of
holding a thousand men with ease, and during this voyage of thirty-six
miles we often wished ourselves anywhere else: the engine, at least one
of them, got deranged; the sea was running mountains high; the cargo on
deck was washed overboard; gingerbread-work, as the sailors call the
ornamental parts of a vessel, went to smash; and, if the remaining
engine had failed in getting us under the shelter of the windward shore,
it would have been pretty much with us as it was with the poor fellow
who went down into one of the deepest shafts of a Swedish mine.
A curious traveller, one of "the inquisitive class," must needs see how
the miners descended into these awful depths. He was put into a large
bucket, attached to the huge rope, with a guide, and gradually lowered
down. When he had got some hundred fathoms or so, he began to feel
queer, and look down, down, down. Nothing could he see but darkness
visible. He questioned his guide as to how far they were from the
bottom, cautiously and nervously. "Oh," said the Swede, "about a mile."
"A mile!" replied the Cockney: "shall we ever get there?"--"I don't
know," said the guide. "Why, does any accident ever happen?"--"Yes,
often."--"How long ago was the last accident, and what was it?"--"Last
week, one of our women went down, and when she had got just where we are
now, the rope broke."--"Oh, Heaven!" ejaculated the inquisitive
traveller, "what happened to her?" The Swede, who did not speak very
good English, put the palm of his right hand over that of his left,
lifted the upper hand, slapped them together with a clap, and said, most
phlegmatically--"Flat as a pankakka."
I once crossed Ontario, in the same direction as that just mentioned, in
another steamer, when the beautiful Ontario was in a towering passion.
We had a poor fellow in the cabin, who had been a Roman Catholic priest,
but who had changed his form of faith. The whole vessel was in
commotion; it was impossible for the best sea-legs to hold on; so two
or three who were not subject to seasickness got into the cabin, or
saloon, as it is called, and grasped any thing in the way. The long
dinner-table, at which fifty people could sit down, gave a lee-lurch,
and jammed our poor _religioner_, as Southey so affectedly calls
ministers of the word, into a corner, where chairs innumerable were soon
piled over him. He abandoned himself to despair; and long and loud were
his confessions. On the first lull, we extricated him, and put him into
a birth. Every now and then, he would call for the steward, the mate,
the captain, the waiters, all in vain, all were busy. At last his cries
brought down the good-natured captain. He asked if we were in danger.
"Not entirely," was the reply. "What is it does it, captain?"--"Oh,"
said the skipper, gruffly enough, "we are in the trough of the sea, and
something has happened to the engine." "The trough of the _say_?"--my
friend was an Irishman--"the trough of the say? is it that does it,
captain?" But the captain was gone.
During the whole storm and the remainder of the voyage, the poor
ex-priest asked every body that passed his refuge if we were out of the
trough of the say. "I know," said he, "it is the trough of the say does
it." No cooking could be performed, and we should have gone dinnerless
and supperless to bed, if we had not, by force of steam, got into the
mouth of the Niagara river. All became then comparatively tranquil; she
moored, and the old Niagara, for that was her name, became steady and at
rest. Soon the cooks, stewards, and waiters, were at work, and dinner,
tea, and supper, in one meal, gladdened our hearts. The greatest eater,
the greatest drinker, and the most confident of us all, was our old
friend and companion of the voyage, "the Trough of the Say," as he was
ever after called.
Such is tranquil Ontario. I remember a man-of-war, called the Bullfrog,
being once very nearly lost in the voyage I have been describing; and
never a November passes without several schooners being lost or wrecked
upon Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario; whilst the largest American
steamers on Erie sometimes suffer the same fate. Whenever Superior is
much navigated, it will be worse, as the seasons are shorter and more
severe there, and the shores iron-bound and mountainous.
Through the Welland Canal there is now a continuous navigation of those
lakes for 844 miles; and the St. Lawrence Canal being completed, and the
La Chine Locks enlarged at Montreal, there will be a continuous line of
shipping from London to the extremity of Lake Superior, embracing an
inland voyage on fresh water of upwards of two thousand miles. Very
little is required to accomplish an end so desirable.
It has been estimated by the Topographical Board of Washington, that
during 1843 the value of the capital of the United States afloat on the
four lakes was sixty-five millions of dollars, or about sixteen
millions, two hundred thousand pounds sterling; and this did not of
course include the British Canadian capital, an idea of which may be
formed from the confident assertion that the Lakes have a greater
tonnage entering the Canadian ports than that of the whole commerce of
Britain with her North American colonies. This is, however, _un peu
fort_. It is now not at all uncommon to see three-masted vessels on Lake
Ontario; and one alone, in November last, brought to Kingston a freight
of flour which before would have required three of the ordinary
schooners to carry, namely, 1500 barrels.
A vessel is also now at Toronto, which is going to try the experiment of
sailing from that port to the West Indies and back again; and, as she
has been properly constructed to pass the canals, there is no doubt of
her success.
Some idea of the immense exertions made by the government to render the
Welland Canal available may be formed by the size of the locks at Port
Dalhousie, which is the entrance on Lake Ontario. Two of the largest
class, in masonry, and of the best quality, have been constructed: they
are 200 feet long by 45 wide; the lift of the upper lock is 11, and of
the lower, 12, which varies with the level of Lake Ontario, the mitre
sill being 12 feet below its ordinary surface. Steamers of the largest
class can therefore go to the thriving village of St. Catherine's, in
the midst of the granary of Canada.
The La Chine Canal must be enlarged for ship navigation more effectually
than it has been. I subjoin a list of colonial shipping for 1844 from
Simmonds' "Colonial Magazine."
NUMBER, TONNAGE, AND CREWS OF VESSELS, WHICH BELONGED
TO THE SEVERAL BRITISH PLANTATIONS IN THE
YEAR 1844:--
Countries. Vessels. Tons. Crews.
Europe--
Malta, 85 15,326 893
Africa--
Bathurst, 25 1,169 215
Sierra Leone, 17 1,148 111
Cape of Good Hope,
Cape Town, 27 3,090 265
Port Elizabeth, 2 201 10
Mauritius, 124 12,079 1,413
Asia--
Bombay, 113 50,767 3,393
Cochin, 15 5,674 275
Tanjore, 33 5,070 257
Madras, 32 5,474 248
Malacca, 2 288 13
Coringa, 17 3,384 126
Singapore, 13 1,543 289
Calcutta, 186 5,1779 2,004
Ceylon, 674 30,076 2,696
Prince of Wales Island, 7 996 51
New Holland--
Sydney, 293 28,051 2,128
Melbourne, 29 1,240 147
Adelaide, 17 864 60
Hobart Town, 103 7,153 724
Launceston, 42 3,150 257
New Zealand--
Auckland, 13 305 42
Wellington, 2 262 32
America--
Canada, Quebec, 509 45,361 2,590
" Montreal, 60 10,097 556
Cape Breton, Sydney, 369 15,048 1,296
" Arichat, 96 4,614 335
New Brunswick, Miramichi, 81 10,143 509
St. Andrews, 193 18,391 918
St. John, 398 63,676 2,480
Newfoundland, St. John, 847 53,944 4,567
Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1,657 82,890 5,292
Liverpool, 31 2,641 163
Pictou, 60 6,929 354
Yarmouth, 146 11,724 637
Prince Edward's Island, 237 13,851 857
West Indies, Antigua, 85 833 220
Bahama, 140 3,252 587
Barbadoes, 37 1,640 305
Berbice, 18 854 89
Bermuda, 54 3,523 323
Demerara, 54 2,353 250
Dominicia, 14 502 85
Grenada, 48 812 198
Jamaica, Port Antonio 5 95 22
Antonio Bay, 2 70 13
Falmouth, 5 107 29
Kingston, 68 2,659 359
Montego Bay, 18 849 105
Morant Bay, 9 251 51
Port Maria, 3 86 18
St. Ann's, 1 20 5
Savannah la Mar, 3 153 22
St. Lucca, 2 64 10
Montserrat, 4 100 19
Nevis, 11 178 45
St. Kitts, 35 546 114
S. Lucia, 19 013[*] 132
St. Vincent, 27 1,164 180
Tobago, 7 182 46
Tortola, 48 277 127
Trinidad, 61 1,832 378
----- ------- ------
Total, 7,304 592,839 40,659
[*Transcriber's note: This figure is not correct]
It will be seen, from the foregoing statement, that the tonnage of the
vessels belonging to our colonies is about equal to that of the whole of
the French mercantile marine, which in 1841 consisted of 592,266
tons--1842, 589,517--1843, 599,707.
The tonnage of the three principal ports of Great Britain in 1844 was:--
London 598,552
Liverpool 307,852
Newcastle 259,571
---------
Total 1,165,975
On Lake Erie, the Canadians have a splendid steamer, the London, Captain
Van Allen, and another still larger is building at Chippewa, which is
partly owned by government, and so constructed as to carry the mail and
to become fitted speedily for warlike purposes.
Lake Ontario swarms with splendid British steam-vessels; but on Lake
Huron there is only at present one, called in the Waterloo, in the
employment of the Canada Company, which runs from Goderich to the new
settlements of Owen's Sound.
Propellers now go all the way to St. Joseph's, at the western extremity
of Lake Huron; and the trade on this lake and on Michigan is becoming
absolutely astonishing. Last year, a return of American and foreign
vessels at Chicago, from the commencement of navigation on the 1st of
April to the 1st of November only, shows that there arrived 151
steamers, 80 propellers, 10 brigs, and 142 schooners, making a total of
1,078 lake-going vessels, and a like number of departures, not including
numerous small craft, engaged in the carrying of wood, staves, ashes,
&c., and yet, such was the glut of wheat, that at the latter date
300,000 bushels remained unshipped.
Upwards of a million of money will be expended by the Canadian
Government in protecting and securing the transit trade of the lakes;
and the Canadians have literally gone ahead of Brother Jonathan, for
they have made a ship-canal round the Falls of Niagara, whilst "the most
enterprising people on the face of the earth," who are so much in
advance of us according to the ideas of some writers, have been,
dreaming about it.--So much for the welfare of the earth being co-equal
with democratic institutions, _a la mode Francaise_!
The American government up to 1844 had spent only 2,100,000 dollars on
the same objects, or about half a million sterling, according to the
statement of Mr. Whittlesey of Ohio. But that government is actually
stirring in another matter, which is of immense future importance,
although it appears trivial at this moment, and that is the opening up
of Lake Superior, where a new world offers itself.
They have projected a ship-canal round, or rather by the side of the
rapids of St. Marie. The length of this canal is said to be only, in
actual cutting, three-quarters of a mile, and the whole expense
necessary not more than 230,000 dollars, or about L55,000 sterling.
The British government should look in time to this; it owns the other
side of the Sault St. Marie, and the Superior country is so rich in
timber and minerals that it is called the Denmark of America, whilst a
direct access hereafter to the Oregon territory and the Pacific must be
opened through the vast chain of lakes towards the Rocky Mountains by
way of Selkirk Colony, on the Red River.
The lakes of Canada have not engaged that attention at home which they
ought to have had; and there is much interesting information about them
which is a dead letter in England.
Their rise and fall is a subject of great interest. The great sinking of
the levels of late years, which has become so visible and so injurious
to commerce, deserves the most attentive investigation. The American
writers attribute it to various causes, and there are as many theories
about it as there are upon all hidden mysteries. Evaporation and
condensation, woods and glaciers, have all been brought into play.
If the lakes are supplied by their own rivers, and by the drainage
streams of the surrounding forests, and all this is again and again
returned into them from the clouds, whence arises the sudden elevation
or the sudden depression of such enormous bodies of water, which have
no tides?
The Pacific and the Atlantic cannot be the cause; we must seek it
elsewhere. To the westward of Huron, on the borders of Superior, the
land is rocky and elevated; but it attains only enormous altitudes at
such a distance on the rocky Andean chain as to render it improbable
that those mountains exert immediate influences on the lakes. The
Atlantic also is too far distant, and very elevated land intervenes to
intercept the rising vapours. On the north, high lands also exist; and
the snows scarcely account for it, as the whole of North America near
these inland seas is alike covered every year in winter.
The north-east and the south-west winds are the prevalent ones, and a
slight inspection of the maps will suffice to show that those compass
bearings are the lines which the lakes and valleys of Northern America
assume.
In 1845, the lakes began suddenly to diminish, and to such a degree was
this continued from June to December, when the hard frosts begin, that,
at the commencement of the latter month, Lake Ontario, at Kingston, was
three feet below its customary level, and consequently, in the country
places, many wells and streams dried up, and there was during the autumn
distress for water both for cattle and man, although the rains were
frequent and very heavy.
Whence, then, do the lakes receive that enormous supply which will
restore them to their usual flow?--or are they permanently diminishing?
I am inclined to believe that the latter is the case, as cultivation and
the clearings of the forest proceed; for I have observed within fifteen
years the total drying up of streamlets by the removal of the forest,
and these streamlets had evidently once been rivulets and even rivers of
some size, as their banks, cut through alluvial soils, plainly
indicated.
The lakes also exhibit on their borders, particularly Ontario, as Lyell
describes from the information of the late Mr. Roy, who had carefully
investigated the subject, very visible remains of many terraces which
had consecutively been their boundaries.
It is evident to observers who have recorded facts respecting the lakes,
that but a small amount of vapour water is deposited by northeasterly
winds from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the great estuary of that river, of
which the lakes are only enlargements, as the wind from that region
carries the cloud-masses from the lakes themselves direct to the valley
of the Mississippi. For it meets with no obstacle from high lands on the
western littorale, which is low. A north-east gale continues usually
from three to six days, and generally without much rain; but all the
other winds from south to westerly afford a plentiful supply of
moisture. Thus a shift of wind from north-east to north and to
north-west perhaps brings back the vapour of the great valley of the
gulf, reduced in temperature by the chilly air of the north and west. If
then an easterly gale continues for an unusual time, the basin of the
Canadian lakes is robbed of much of its water, which passes to the
rivers of the west, and is lost in the gulf of Mexico, or in the forest
lakes of the wild West.
Perhaps, therefore, whenever a cycle occurs in which north-east winds
prevail during a year or a series of years, the lakes lose their level,
for, their direction being north-east and south-west, such is the usual
current of the air; and therefore either north-east or south-westerly
winds are the usual ones which pass over their surface.
The parts of the great inland navigation which suffer most in these
periodical depressions are the St. Clair River and the shallow parts of
those extensions of the St. Lawrence called Lakes St. Francis and St.
Peter, which in the course of time will cause, and indeed in the latter
already do cause, some trouble and some anxiety.
The north winds, keen and cold, do not deposit much in the valley of the
lakes, whose southern borders are usually too low also to prevent the
passage of rain-bearing clouds.
From that portion of the dividing ridge between the valleys of the St.
Lawrence and Mississippi, only seven miles from Lake Erie, says an
American writer, there is to Fort Wayne, at the head of the Maumee
river, one hundred miles from the same lake, a gradual subsidence of the
land from 700 to less than 200 feet.
From Fort Wayne westward this dividing ridge rises only one hundred and
fifty feet, and then gradually subsides to the neighbourhood of the
south-west of Lake Michigan, where it is but some twenty feet above the
level of that water.
The basin of the Mississippi, including its great tributary streams,
receives therefore a very great portion of the falling vapour, from all
the winds blowing from north to north-east.
The same reasoner agrees with the views which I have expressed
respecting the probability of the supply to raise the level, which must
be the great feeder derived from the south and south-westward invariably
rainy winds, when of long continuance, in the basin of the St.
Lawrence, and generated by the gulf stream in its gyration through the
Mexican Bay, being heaped up from the trade wind which causes the
oceanic current, and forces its heated atmosphere north and north-east,
by the rebound which it takes from the vast Cordilleras of Anahuac and
Panama; thus depositing its cooling showers on the chain of the fresh
water seas of Canada, condensed as they are by the natural air-currents
from the icy regions of the western Andes of Oregon, and the cold
breezes from the still more gelid countries of the north-west.
The American topographical engineers, as well as our own civil engineers
and savans, have accurately measured the heights and levels of the
lakes, which I have already given; but one very curious fact remains to
be noticed, and will prove that it is by no means a visionary idea that,
from the great island of Cuba, which must be an English outpost, if much
further annexation occurs, voyages will be made to bring the produce of
the West Indies and Spanish America into the heart of the United States
and Canada by the Mississippi and the rivers flowing into it, and by the
great lakes; so that a vessel, loading at Cuba, might perform a circuit
inland for many thousand miles, and return to her port _via_ Quebec.
From the Gulf of Mexico to the lowest summits of the ridge separating
the basin of the Mississippi from that of the St. Lawrence or great
lakes, the rise does not exceed six hundred feet, and the graduation of
the land has an average of not more than six inches to a mile in an
almost continuous inclined plane of six thousand miles. The Americans
have not lost sight of this natural assistance to form a communication
between the lakes and the Mississippi.
My attention has been drawn to the subsidence of the waters of the lakes
of Canada by the unusual lowness of Ontario, on the banks of which I
lived last year, and by reading the statement of the American writer
above quoted, as well as by the fact that in the Travels of Carver, one
of the first English navigators on these mediterraneans, who states that
a small ship of forty tons, in sailing from the head of Lake Michigan to
Detroit, was unable to pass over the St. Clair flats for want of water,
and that the usual way of passing them eighty years ago was in small
boats. What a useful thing it would have been, if any scientific
navigators or resident observers had registered the rise and fall of the
lakes in the years since Upper Canada came into our possession! An old
naval officer told me that it was really periodical; and it occurred
usually, that the greatest depression and elevation had intervals of
seven years. Lake Erie is evidently becoming more shallow constantly,
but not to any great or alarming degree; and shoals form, even in the
splendid roadstead of Kingston, within the memory of young inhabitants.
An American revenue vessel, pierced for, I believe, twenty-four guns,
and carrying an enormous Paixhan, grounded in the autumn of last year on
a shoal in that harbour, which was not known to the oldest pilot.
By the bye, talking of this vessel, which is a steamer built of iron,
and fitted with masts and sails, the same as any other sea-going vessel,
can it be requisite, in order to protect a commerce which she cannot
control beyond the line drawn through the centre of the lakes, to have
such a vessel for revenue purposes? or is she not a regular man-of-war,
ready to throw her shells into Kingston, if ever it should be required?
At least, such is the opinion which the good folks of that town
entertained when they saw the beautiful craft enter their harbour.
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