FOOTNOTES:
[222] It has now assumed the Indian name of Toronto.
No. XXI.
"On the 5th of February, 1663, about half past five o'clock in the evening, a great rushing noise was heard throughout the whole extent of Canada. This noise caused the people to run out of their houses into the streets, as if their habitations had been on fire; but, instead of flames or smoke, they were surprised to see the walls reeling backward and forward, and the stones moving as if they were detached from each other. The bells sounded by the repeated shocks. The roofs of the buildings bent down, first on one side, and then on the other. The timbers, rafters, and planks cracked. The earth trembled violently, and caused the stakes of the palisades and palings to dance, in a manner that would have been incredible had we not actually seen it in many places. It was at this moment every one ran out of doors. Then were to be seen animals flying in every direction; children crying and screaming in the streets; men and women, seized with affright, stood horror-struck with the dreadful scene before them, unable to move, and ignorant where to fly for refuge from the tottering walls and trembling earth, which threatened every instant to crush them to death, or sink them into a profound and immeasurable abyss. Some threw themselves on their knees in the snow, crossing their breasts, and calling on their saints to relieve them from the dangers with which they were surrounded. Others passed the rest of this dreadful night in prayer; for the earthquake ceased not, but continued at short intervals with a certain undulating impulse, resembling the waves of the ocean; and the same qualmish sensations, or sickness at the stomach, was felt during the shocks as is experienced in a vessel at sea.
"The violence of the earthquake was greatest in the forest, where it appeared as if there was a battle raging between the trees; for not only their branches were destroyed, but even their trunks are said to have been detached from their places, and dashed against each other with inconceivable violence and confusion—so much so, that the Indians, in their figurative manner of speaking, declared that all the forests were drunk. The war also seemed to be carried on between the mountains, some of which were torn from their beds and thrown upon others, leaving immense chasms in the places from whence they had issued, and the very trees with which they were covered sunk down, leaving only their tops above the surface of the earth; others were completely overturned, their branches buried in the earth, and the roots only remained above ground. During this general wreck of nature, the ice, upward of six feet thick, was rent and thrown up in large pieces, and from the openings in many parts there issued thick clouds of smoke, or fountains of dirt and sand, which spouted up to a very considerable height. The springs were either choked up, or impregnated with sulphur; many rivers were totally lost; others were diverted from their course, and their waters entirely corrupted. Some of them became yellow, others red, and the great river of the St. Lawrence appeared entirely white, as far down as Tadoussac. This extraordinary phenomenon must astonish those who know the size of the river, and the immense body of waters in various parts, which must have required such an abundance of matter to whiten it. They write from Montreal that, during the earthquake, they plainly saw the stakes of the picketing or palisades jump up as if they had been dancing; and that of two doors in the same room, one opened and the other shut of their own accord; that the chimneys and tops of the houses bent like branches of the trees agitated with the wind; that when they went to walk they felt the earth following them, and rising at every step they took, something sticking against the soles of their feet, and other things in a very forcible and surprising manner.
"From Three Rivers they write that the first shock was the most violent, and commenced with a noise resembling thunder. The houses were agitated in the same manner as the tops of trees during a tempest, with a noise as if fire was crackling in the garrets. The shock lasted half an hour, or rather better, though its greatest force was properly not more than a quarter of an hour, and we believe there was not a single shock which did not cause the earth to open either more or less.
"As for the rest, we have remarked that, though this earthquake continued almost without intermission, yet it was not always of an equal violence. Sometimes it was like the pitching of a large vessel which dragged heavily at her anchors, and it was this motion which occasioned many to have a giddiness in their heads and a qualmishness in their stomachs. At other times the motion was hurried and irregular, creating sudden jerks, some of which were extremely violent; but the most common was a slight tremulous motion, which occurred frequently with little noise. Many of the French inhabitants and Indians, who were eye-witnesses to the scene, state that, a great way up the river of Trois Rivières, about eighteen miles below Quebec, the hills which bordered the river on either side, and which were of a prodigious height, were torn from their foundations, and plunged into the river, causing it to change its course, and spread itself over a large tract of land recently cleared; the broken earth mixed with the waters, and for several months changed the color of the great River St. Lawrence, into which that of Trois Rivières disembogues itself. In the course of this violent convulsion of nature, lakes appeared where none ever existed before; mountains were overthrown, swallowed up by the gaping, or precipitated into adjacent rivers, leaving in their places frightful chasms or level plains; falls and rapids were changed into gentle streams, and gentle streams into falls and rapids. Rivers in many parts of the country sought other beds, or totally disappeared. The earth and the mountains were entirely split and rent in innumerable places, creating chasms and precipices, whose depths have never yet been ascertained. Such devastation was also occasioned in the woods, that more than a thousand acres in our neighborhood were completely overturned; and where, but a short time before, nothing met the eye but one immense forest of trees, now were to be seen extensive cleared lands, apparently cut up by the plow.
"At Tadoussac (about 150 miles below Quebec, on the north side) the effect of the earthquake was not less violent than in other places; and such a heavy shower of volcanic ashes fell in that neighborhood, particularly in the River St. Lawrence, that the waters were as violently agitated as during a tempest. The Indians say that a vast volcano exists in Labrador. Near St. Paul's Bay (about fifty miles below Quebec, on the north side), a mountain, about a quarter of a league in circumference, situated on the shore of the St. Lawrence, was precipitated into the river, but, as if it had only made a plunge, it rose from the bottom, and became a small island, forming with the shore a convenient harbor, well sheltered from all winds. Lower down the river, toward Point Alouettes, an entire forest of considerable extent was loosened from the main bank, and slid into the River St. Lawrence, where the trees took fresh root. There are three circumstances, however, which have rendered this extraordinary earthquake particularly remarkable: the first is its duration, it having continued from February to August, that is to say, more than six months almost without intermission! It is true, the shocks were not always equally violent. In several places, as toward the mountains behind Quebec, the thundering noise and trembling motion continued successively for a considerable time. In others, as toward Tadoussac, the shock continued generally for two or three days at a time with much violence.
"The second circumstance relates to the extent of this earthquake, which, we believe, was universal throughout the whole of New France, for we learn that it was felt from L'Isle Percé and Gaspé, which are situated at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, to beyond Montreal; as also in New England, Acadia, and other places more remote. As far as it has come to our knowledge, this earthquake extended more than 600 miles in length, and about 300 in breadth. Hence 180,000 square miles of land were convulsed in the same day and at the same moment.
"The third circumstance, which appears the most remarkable of all, regards the extraordinary protection of Divine Providence, which has been extended to us and our habitations; for we have seen near us the large openings and chasms which the earthquake occasioned, and the prodigious extent of country which has been either totally lost or hideously convulsed, without our losing either man, woman, or child, or even having a hair of their head touched."—Jesuits' Journal, Quebec, 1663.
No. XXII.
"The principle in both instances is alike: in the former, the caloric or vital heat of the body passes so rapidly from the hand into the cold iron as to destroy the continuous and organic structure of the part; in the latter, the caloric passes so rapidly from the hot iron into the hand as to produce the same effect: heat, in both cases, being the same; its passing into the body from the iron, or into the iron from the body, being equally injurious to vitality. From a similar cause, the incautious traveler in Canada is burned in the face by a very cold wind, with the same sensations as when he is exposed to the blast of an eastern sirocco. Milton thus alludes to the effects of cold in his description of the abode of Satan and his compeers. After adverting to Styx, he says,
'Beyond this flood, a frozen continent
Lies, dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice;
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,
Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Burns frore (frozen), and cold performs the effect of fire.'
Paradise Lost, B. 2.
"We also find in Virgil, Georg., i., 93,
'Borea penetrabile frigus adurat.'"—Gray's Canada, p. 290.
No. XXIII.
"This meteor is strongest and most frequent about the arctic circle, or between that and the parallel of 64°. It is now ascertained, we think, beyond all doubt, that the height of the Aurora, instead of being, as supposed by Mr. Dalton and others, above the region of the atmosphere, is, in fact, rarely above six or seven miles. This was satisfactorily proved by angles taken in the same moment at two distant places, always exceedingly small at one or both stations; by the extreme rapidity with which a beam darts from one side of the horizon to the opposite side, which could not happen if 100 miles high or upward; by its frequently darting its beams beneath the clouds, and at very short distances from the earth's surface, and by its being acted upon by the wind. Mr. Hood was told by one of the partners of the Northwest Company that he once saw the coruscations of the Aurora Borealis so vivid and low that the Canadians fell on their faces, and began crying and praying, fearing lest they should be killed; that he threw away his gun and knife, that they might not attract the flashes, for they were within two feet from the earth, flitting along with incredible swiftness, and moving parallel to the surface; he added that they made a loud rustling noise, like the waving of a flag in a strong breeze. This rustling noise, which is universally asserted by the servants of the Northwest Company, was not heard by any of the officers of Captain Franklin's expedition, but he says that it would be an absurd degree of skepticism to doubt the fact any longer, for their observations had rather increased than diminished the probability of it. It has hitherto been supposed that the magnetic needle was not affected by the Aurora; but a vast number of experiments given in the tables prove that, in certain positions of the beams and arches, the needle was considerably drawn aside, and mostly so when the flashes were between the clouds and the earth, or when their actions were quick, their light vivid, and the atmosphere hazy."—Franklin's Journey to the Polar Sea, Nos. II. and III. of the Appendix.
The following is Charlevoix's description of the Aurora Borealis, never before witnessed by the French colonists:
"Un autre phénomène, qui parôit dans l'air, mériteroit bien qu'on s'étudiât à en découvrir la cause. Dans le tems le plus serein, on apperçoit tout à coup au milieu de la nuit de nuages d'une blancheur extraordinaire, et au travers de ces nuages une lumière très-éclatante. Lors même qu'on ne sent pas un souffle de vent, ces nuages sont chassés avec une très-grande vitesse, et prennent toutes sortes de figures. Plus la nuit est obscure, plus la lumière est vive: elle l'est même quelquefois à un point, qu'on peut lire à sa lueur beaucoup plus aisément, qu'à celle de la lune dans son plein.
"On dira peut-être que ce n'est qu'une réfraction des raïons du soleil, qui par cette hauteur ne s'éloigne pas beaucoup de l'horison pendant les nuits de l'été, et qu'encore qu'il n'y ait point de vent dans la basse région de l'air, il peut y en avoir dans la supérieure, ce qui est vrai; mais ce qui me fait juger qu'il y a encore une autre de ce météore, c'est que pendant l'hyver même, la lune paroît souvent environnée d'arc-en-ciel de couleurs différentes, et toutes très-vives. Pour moi je suis persuadé que ces effets doivent être attribués en partie à des exhalaisons nitreuses, qui pendant le jour ont été attirées et enfluencées par le soleil."
No. XXIV.
"Very distant posterity will one day decide whether, as Mr. Leslie has endeavored to prove by ingenious hypothesis (An Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and Propagation of Heat, 1804), 2400 years are sufficient to augment the mean temperature of the atmosphere a single degree. However slow this increment may be, we must admit that an hypothesis, according to which organic life seems gradually to augment on the globe, occupies more agreeably our imagination than the old system of the cooling of our planet and the accumulation of the polar ice."—Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vol. ii., p. 83.
"A point of much interest is the comparison of the actual temperature of the globe with that of the same regions in former ages. The evidence which justifies the conclusion that no change has occurred but from local or superficial causes, is worth studying, were it only for its variety and singularity. We might begin with Laplace's conclusion, that the mean heat can not be altered by 1° of Réaumur since the time of Hipparchus, inasmuch as the dimensions of the globe would be thereby changed in a small amount, its angular velocity be increased or diminished, and a sensible difference be made in the length of the day, which difference does not exist. We might then proceed to the argument urged by Biot and Champollion, from the identity of the time of inundation in the Nile, 5000 years ago, the periodical rains producing which depend upon and indicate the degree and distribution of heat over a vast equatorial region. Next we might turn to the method of Professor Schaw, in his work on the comparative temperature of ancient and modern times, founded on the northern and southern limits of production of different animals and plants in any given country, as they come recorded to us by ancient writers, compared with the observations of our own day. The result of general identity is obtained by this method also; and the same remark may be extended to the miscellaneous proofs derived from other passages in ancient writers, numerously collated, respecting the climate of particular regions and localities. There is no amount of diversity shown by this evidence which does not admit of explanation from local and accidental causes, many of them belonging to the agency of man himself, on the surface of the earth."—Quarterly Review, September, 1848.
"Several planters attribute the failure of the cotton crop this year (1842) to the unusual size and number of the icebergs, which floated southward last spring from Hudson's and Baffin's Bays, and may have cooled the sea and checked the early growth of the cotton plant, so numerous and remote are the disturbing causes of meteorology! Forty degrees of latitude intervene between the region where the ice-floes are generated and that where the crops are raised, whose death-warrant they are supposed to have carried with them."—Lyell's America, vol. i., p. 174.
No. XXV.
The theory by which Dr. Brewster seeks to account for the peculiarities of the American climate is the following: "He supposes that the poles of the globe and the isothermal poles are by no means coincident, and that, on the contrary, there exist two different points, within a few degrees of the poles, where the cold is greatest in both hemispheres. These points are believed by Dr. Brewster to be situated about the eightieth parallel of latitude, and in the meridians of 95° east and 100° west longitude. The meridians of these isothermal poles[223] he considers as lying nearly at right angles to the parallels of what might be called the meteorological latitudes, which, according to his theory, appear to have an obliquity of direction as regards the equator something like the zodiac. Thus the cold circle of latitude that passes through Siberia would be the same that traverses the frigid atmosphere of Canada. This theory would go some length toward explaining the causes of the gradual decrease of the severity of cold in the south of Europe, and lead us to the conclusion that eventually the cold meridian of Canada may work its way westward, and leave that part of America to an enjoyment of the same temperature as those European countries situated in corresponding latitudes. That the temperature of the air has been modified by agricultural operations can not be denied, but that these operations should of themselves be capable of producing the changes known to have taken place in the course of ages in Europe, where formerly the Tiber used to be often frozen, and snow was by no means uncommon at Rome;[224] when the Euxine Sea, the Rhone, and the Rhine, were almost every year covered with ice, of sufficient thickness to bear considerable burdens, it is scarcely possible rationally to admit; and, indeed, the meteorological observations, as far as they go in Canada, serve rather to disprove than to establish the fact."—Bouchette, vol. i., p. 335.
"The earliest record of the climate of Canada is that contained in the 'Fastes Chronologiques,' and refers to the period of Cartier's second voyage. On the 15th of November, 1535, Old Style, the vessels in the River St. Charles were surrounded by ice, and the Indians informed Cartier that the whole river was frozen over as far as Montreal. On the 22d of February, 1536, the River St. Lawrence became navigable for canoes opposite to Quebec, but the ice remained firm in the St. Croix harbor. On the 5th of April his vessels were disengaged from the ice. To obtain the modern dates, it will be necessary to add eleven days to each period.
"The later meteorological statistics do not prove that the progressive opening of the country has had so powerful an influence upon the temperature of the atmosphere as is generally supposed. Its chief tendency seems to be to lengthen the summer, and thus abridge the duration of winter. That the gradual removal of the forests to make room for open fields contributes to augment the summer temperature, is undoubtedly true, since it is well known that the atmosphere itself is not heated by the direct rays of the sun, but that its warmth springs from the earth, and that the degree of this warmth is entirely governed by the quantum of heat absorbed through the earth's surface. The progressive settlement of the country may then be expected to benefit the climate, by its throwing open to the direct action of the sun a more extended surface of territory; and this benefit will be more sensibly felt at night, from the earth's having imbibed a sufficient quantity of caloric to temper the coolness of the air between the setting and rising of the sun. In an agricultural point of view, such an improvement in the climate of Canada will be of great moment, as the coldness of the nights is generally the cause of blight in tender fruits and plants; and from its equalizing the temperature, probably render the climate capable of maturing fruits that are indigenous to warm countries.
"Notwithstanding the opposing testimony of meteorological data, we have the assertion of some of the oldest inhabitants of the country that the climate of Canada has become perceptibly milder within their recollection, and are thus left to conciliate this traditional record with contradictory facts, and the only mode of doing so appears to be the application of their remarks, more to the duration of the mild season than the degrees of cold that were indicated by the thermometer in the course of the year."—Bouchette, vol. i., p. 334, 340, 1831; Lambert's Travels through Canada in 1808, vol. i., p. 119.
Kalm says in 1748, September 12th, "The weather about this time was like the beginning of our August, Old Style. Therefore it seems that autumn commences a whole month later in Canada than in the midst of Sweden."—P. 682.