ptive
quality which it would be hard to improve.

From the point where the river leaves the plateau and plunges into the
deep pool below the Falls, its course for fifteen miles is through one
of the most remarkable canyons in the world. From the appearance of the
sides of this gorge, and the zigzag line of the river, the indications
are that the stream has slowly forced its way through this rocky chasm,
cutting its way back, foot by foot, from the edge of the plateau to the
present position of the Falls. Recent investigators estimate that a
period of six thousand years was required to form the gorge below
Niagara Falls; or, in other words, that it has taken that time for the
Falls to recede from their former position at Queenstown Heights to
their present location. If it has taken this length of time for the
Niagara Falls to make their way back a distance of seven miles by the
erosive power of the water acting on a soft shale rock supporting a
stratum of limestone, the immensity of time involved by assuming that
the Grand River canyon was formed in the same way is so great that the
mind falters in contemplating it, especially when it is recognized that
the escarpment of the Labrador Falls is of hard gneissic rock. And yet
no other explanation of the origin of this gorge is acceptable, unless,
indeed, we can assume that at some former time a fissure occurred in the
earth's crust as a result of igneous agencies, and that this fissure ran
in a line identical with the present course of the river; in which case
the drainage of the table-land, collecting into the Grand River, would
follow the line of least resistance, and in the course of time excavate
the fissure into the present proportions of the gorge.

LIFE AMONG THE ESQUIMAUX.

WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY.

[The attempt to find a northwest passage from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, by which commerce might make its way round the
continent of North America, occupied the attention of navigators
from the voyage of Henry Hudson, in 1610, to that of McClure, in
1850; the latter proving that such a passage existed, but that
it was impracticable for commerce. Among those engaged in this
enterprise one of the most notable was Captain Parry, from whose
interesting journal of his voyage (1821-25) the following
selection is taken, descriptive of experiences at Gore Bay,
where the ships of the expedition had lain all winter in the