am the only one who has ever sounded at this place. The falls are
no sooner passed than the river suddenly expands to nearly half a
league. It is still very deep and a vessel of fifty or sixty tons
could ascend thirty leagues, but it would be necessary to take
care to pass the falls when the sea is level, or one would
certainly be lost there. It must be conceded that this is the most
beautiful, the most navigable and the most highly favored river of
Acadia. The most beautiful, on account of the variety of trees to
be found, such as butternut, cherry, hazel, elms, oaks, maples and
vines.

_Masts._--There is a grove of pine on the boarders of a lake near
Gemseq (Jemseg), fifteen leagues from the sea, where there might
be made the finest masts, and they could be conducted into the St.
John by a little river which falls in there.

_Pewter mine._--Near the same lake there in a mine of pewter. I
have seen the Indians melt and manufacture from it balls for their
hunting.

It is most navigable, by reason of its size and depth and the
number of lakes and rivers that empty themselves into it. The most
highly favored, by reason of its greater depth of fertile soil, of
its unrivalled salmon fishing, and of its reaching into the
country to a depth of eighty leagues. The bass, the trout, the
gaspereau, the eel, the sturgeon and a hundred other kinds of
fishes are found in abundance. The most highly favored, also,
because it furnishes in abundance beavers and other fur-bearing
animals. I have ascended this river nearly one hundred and fifty
leagues in a bark canoe. I pass in silence other attractions that
it possesses for I must not be too long.

One single thing is to be regretted, which is that in the most
beautiful places, where the land and meadows are low, they are
inundated every spring time after the snow melts. The continuance
of this inundation (or freshet) is because the waters cannot flow
out sufficiently fast on account of those two rocks, of which I
have spoken, which contract the outlet of the river. It would not
be very difficult to facilitate the flow of the waters. It would
only be necessary to mine the rock that is to the right hand on
entering, and which seems to want to tumble of itself. It is
undeniable that the waters would flow forth more freely, and the
falls would be levelled, or at least diminished, and all this flat
country p