The Great Lakes

.On Lake Ontario tho night is soft, and miles a.way, across the smoo.th water to he southwest, a great Ato is burning agniust the sky. Abovo us hangs au Iiidian gummoT baLe, which theysay is the suioke üf bjirnuig prairies, thè roflected tars boa-m miïdly from depths below, and over this crystal map of constellaions we furrow a foamy way to tho hidden land which is not taf country. On Bjy right lts Wolfü isLuid, below 1,000 isaijwjs moi-,o, luitl the rapids which 7tlooro's Ja.nadian boatmen found when the dayLght was passed. ïliis Frontenac, as the admirurs of Count ,C. used to cali it, had n Skoaiadario, or "vory pretty lake," a bettor name, perhaps, ;th:m Ontario, s:gnifying "the big spring," theysiy, to listinguish it from On#ndagft, "the litil i prng." Slipping over its diaphanous jreen water one June day from To.onto, i gauzy curtain of fog liftcd just boforo caching Queensfrown to show us the rettiest oí island views. Bjr the way, ïow difficult it is for one born by thi hore to feol that hc is at sea. on these vaten! From the stoep bluffs of Milvaukeo I have Bwept the horizon of Lake iidii;an to count the many disappearng suils, and yet could not resist the éeling that the oxpanse was land-loeked, ind found a ccitüin üimeness thore. In a storm on this lake thny say even oíd sailors are sea uok-Ggrilfg .to its shalowness. perhaps, ,or littlf: specifio graviy. üiut ouly the strange phenomenon of ts momentancous rise, bodily, to the leight of sevcralfeet, could ftffect us, tliis niét night, and I should admire sceing nd ÍAeling that as much m did good Tather Charlovohc. Tliemusing missionry, much meditating in these solitudes, vas startled, gazing at these waters, to eeit swell up at once, and cover a largo ouk noar hiui on the northorn shore. I ïeard ut Oswogo, from Colonel of roguars stationed thcre. of its coming at one irae to the top of the wharvcs so suddeny aud unexpectedly that there was hardy time to get out of its way. I don't [iiow how truc it is, but some say (Warjurton in nis "Canada" among thcni) :iat this happens every soventb year. losolve mo this, how a body of water 170 liles long by GO wide, and IÍ00 fathoms eep, in tUo middle, can behave thus, nd you BUalí be made a nieniber of all tibie learned societies. Is it a teniporary increaso of tho wholo body ? or a wave driven ashore by submarino volcanio uneasiness? or neither 'f Mother Earth had a sort of aguo fit here, poiuc two huudred years ftgo, that shook the earth like one great drop ; and soine say that its agitationR a century later were the wavea ot the sub-Atlantic earthquake which set tho laVes of Sootland and Sweden danings t-Ue West India Islands bobbig ike corks, a: d Lisbon tumbling down overing, in all, some 700,000 squuro miles. iut Bang Frost turns the tables o,n the waters, so to spoak, and in winter it has boen .50 stüblo that hey have sailed1 cross it iaice-boats. I-iieut. Delios tclls f one of these hormaphrodite creatures, esting upon three skates, and stoered by One at the stern, which went from ïoron;o to Niagaia, forty miles, in forty-iiye minutes A niqo bpat indeed, and reouirng a nico hand. What great locks, as it were, these akes are, in a grand natural canal from rairio to ocean ? To you, at the sealide, the gto.p :up here to mo is 2'èO feet; iii feet abovo us is Erio ; Huron thirty eet higher, and thirty-two feet still highcr is Superior, 627 feetabove the sea. The water rippHuer at our bow, sliding he tabltJand of Albany, between Httdon's Bay and Lake Superior, has come, witb inany an adventure, by thc picturod rocks, the falls oí St. Mary, Miohil iraacknac, the 30,000 islands ot'Hurun, and the ;reon channel of Detroit ; and atter its arenely mad plungo into thé whirlpool jeneath Niágara takes breath here for ;hat swift run of tho rapids below nul ;ho thousand islands, and so past Anticosti and Gaspe, to find its ever-sought rest in the arras of good Ut. Lawrence. Vain hopo ! Can rest be found in lower levéis ? Again we shall meet it by and by in tho tossing tumults of tho Grand Banks, glad to ascend in fogs and sundrawn vapors, and to bo oarricd to feed the sources of tho Nile or MTssissippi, or oven back to its own interior tableland of British America, to sweep once more past its oíd haunts to a fancied haven of rest. Lake Erie, some 300 feet above us, and with Niágara, drawing off a hundred million tons an hour, boasts of a perceptible current through its two hundred and sixty miles of length. " Cat " is the Euglish of Erie, for tho respoctablo Indian family of that ilk beat that of Conti in the race for a name, though the old maps still show tho latter dosignation, which La Hontain was anxious it should boar. 1 reiuembcr voyaging along its shore ono May what time it was bordered with blooming peaoh-trees, nor wondered tlmt settlers ascarly ns 1683 wero in lovo with its fertile coacta. Hurón is alovely name, and a lovely pieco of water. Think of a pond a thousand miles in circumfcrenco, bounded by picturesquo precipitous shores, so clear that a napkin sunk thirty fathoms i as distinctly seen as when iinmeised throo feot, and geinmed with thousands of islands. " Winnipisaogee " was the smilo of tbc Great Spirit. But here on Mouitoulin island, tho Great Spirit had its oonxtant abode. Do you rememberthe Thunder mountain of .Lak e Superior among thoso steps which riso abruptly from tho water' s edge V Tho western face of this bleak rock is 1,200 feet, perpendicular height! Ponco de Leon loft his castlos in Spain to soarch lor "Bimidi," tho f'ountain of youth, in that ilowery land they cali Florida. Tho Indians had airadition, which it almos! takea your breath to think of, that any one who could climb tho Thundormountain, and turn round on the brink of its wnll, would live forevor. The view alone, what with lofty hills and lowlands, and everywtaere the primeval forost, with a sunset gilding the tivmsparent soa and its iieets and islands, would be worth tho atteinpt. The enrly French discoverors, roaoning the climax of wonder wlicn cmbarked on Superior, and not bcin. ablo to trtice its 1,200 feet, rcturned word that it had neithor banks nor bottom. Yet though luany acrystal fathom dark oyes of dusky t'iicis Leaning from canoos might have watchcd the dartihg iish on his sliingly bod, aud Josuits exclaimed with I-'iviu;h aduiiration at the jieiitea beten so far beneath them. When I fancy the courso of one tliousand miles nn iiscending fish might take from wliero we aro now saiüng (could he loap Niágara) to reach tlie tablo-lands nuith of iSuporior Crossing one hundrod thousand square miles of fresh water - more than lialf there is on the globo - and to cali to mind its variod wonders if cataract and rapid, and tho buttressed coast wbioh hcins it in tho enthusiastic cxplorer doos not sooin vcry extravagant who declared ha had found tho grandest uid most beautit'ul waters of the univorse ; tdding that lie had disouvered countï-ies, situated botwoen the t'rozen soa and New Sloxico, which ho oould cali with iusticc