“It is remarkable, that, rising from the same table-land, and so intimately connected by intersecting branches, which occasionally flow into each other during periods of inundation, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence present the most striking contrast in their general features. Many of these are mentioned in the observations I will copy for you from Darby; but others, not much less interesting, might be added.
[Illustration: _Montreal, from the St. Lawrence._]
[Illustration: _The St. Lawrence at Montreal._]
“‘The Mississippi is turbid, in many parts to muddiness; the St. Lawrence unusually limpid. One river is composed of almost an unbroken chain of lakes; the other, in all its vast expanse, has no lakes that strictly deserve the name. Annually the Mississippi overleaps its bed, and overwhelms the adjacent shores to a great extent; an accidental rise of three feet, in the course of fifty years, is considered an extraordinary swell of the waters of St. Lawrence; this circumstance has occurred the present season for the first time within the lapse of forty years past. The Mississippi, flowing from north to south, passes through innumerable climes; whilst its rival, winding from its source, in a south-east direction, to near north latitude 41°, turns gradually north-east, and again flows into its original climate of ice and snow. The Mississippi, before its final discharge into the Gulf of Mexico, divides into a number of branches, having their separate egress; the St. Lawrence imperceptibly expands to a wide bay, which finally opens into the gulf of the same name. The banks of the Mississippi present a level, scarce rising above the superior surface of that stream; those of St. Lawrence, by a gentle acclivity, exhibit the opposing sides of an elegant basin. Much of the surface watered by the Mississippi is a region of grass, where few shrubs or trees rise to break the monotony of the face of the earth; the shores that bound the St. Lawrence, when in a state of nature, are covered with an almost continuous and impervious forest. And, lastly, though rather an accidental than a natural distinction, the Mississippi rolls its mighty volume, swelled by more than a thousand rivers, through one empire; and is, as I once before observed, the largest stream on this globe, whose entire course lies within one sovereignty. The St. Lawrence is, for more than 1,300 miles, a national limit, and, as such, marked with the sanguinary points which distinguish the bounds of rival power.’