e fall between the two lakes is 333 feet. Lake Ontario is
180 miles long and 65 miles wide. Out of its north-eastern end falls
the broad stream which here generally takes the name of the Saint
Lawrence, and which proceeds onward, now widening into lake-like
expanses full of islands, now compressed into a narrow channel, in a
north-easterly direction. The true Saint Lawrence may indeed be
considered as traversing the whole system of the great lakes of North
America, and thus being little less than a thousand miles in direct
length; indeed, including its windings, it is fully two thousand miles
long. To the north-west of it exist countless numbers of small lakes
united by a network of streams; while numerous large rivers, such as the
Ottawa, the Saint Maurice, and the Saguenay, flow into it, and assist to
swell its current. There are numerous other small lakes to the west of
the Rocky Mountains, a large number of which exist in the Province of
British Columbia, and are more or less connected with the Fraser and
Columbia Rivers. Further to the south are other lakes, many of them of
volcanic origin, some intensely salt, others formed of hot mud. Among
these is the Great Salt Lake, in the State of Utah. To the south of the
Saint Lawrence also is Lake Champlain, 105 miles long, though extremely
narrow,--being only 10 miles in its widest part, narrowing in some
places to half a mile. Near it is the beautiful Lake Saint George, with
several other small lakes; and lastly, in Florida, there is a chain of
small lakes, terminating in Lake Okechodee--a circular sheet of water
about thirty miles in diameter.

We must now proceed more particularly to examine the regions of which we
have obtained the preceding cursory view, but, before we do so, we must
glance at their human inhabitants.

ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS--THE RED MEN OF THE WILDS.

While the white men from Europe occupy the whole eastern coast, pressing
rapidly and steadily westward, the Redskin aborigines maintain a
precarious existence throughout the centre of the continent, from north
to south, and are still found here and there on the western shores. On
the northern ice-bound coast, the skin-clothed Esquimaux wander in small
bands from Behring Strait to Baffin Bay, but never venture far inland,
being kept in check by their hereditary enemies, the Athabascas, the
most northern of the red-skinned nations. The Esquimaux, inhabiting the
Arctic regions, may more prop