This delightful scene around us, so perfectly filled and satisfied
our sense of beauty that we reluctantly gave up our comfortable seats on
the stern-deck, notwithstanding an advanced time of night.
On the following morning the sun rose in his clearest splendor. As soon as
that flood of luminous rays which constitutes day, was flowing on the
crystalline sea, we departed from this romantic country scene in Canada.
Sailing along, we approached the terminus of our voyage on Lake Erie,
which is considered the most dangerous of all the Great Lakes as to
navigation, owing to its comparative shallowness--its mean depth, being
about ninety feet--and the consequent liability to a heavy ground swell.
The peculiar features of this body of water are its inferior depth and the
clayey nature of its shores, which are generally low; on the south,
however, bordered by an elevated plateau, through which the rivers have
cut deep channels.
Though the lake possesses but a small number of good harbors, the amount
of traffic on its waters, and on the connecting railways is enormous.
This inland-sea, presenting us only sights of utmost quietude and peace,
has been the scene of a naval engagement between the British and
Americans, September 10, 1813, in which the latter were victorious.
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