within the reach, not of a score of luxurious, sauntering tourists, but of the great mass of the population, who have senses and tastes as keen as the keenest. You throw it open, with all its soothing and humanizing influences, to thousands who, but for your railways and steamers, would have lived and died without ever having breathed the life giving air of the mountains; yes, sir, to tens of thousands, who would have gone to their graves, and the sooner for the privation, without ever having caught a glimpse of the most magnificent and beautiful spectacle which nature presents to the eye of man—that of a glorious combing wave, a quarter of a mile long, as it comes swelling and breasting towards the shore, till its soft green ridge bursts into a crest of snow, and settles and dies along the whispering sands!" (Immense cheering.)

"But even this is nothing compared with the great social and moral effects of this system, a subject admirably treated, in many of its aspects, in a sermon by Dr. Gannett, which has been kindly given to the public. All important also are its political effects in binding the States together as one family, and uniting us to our neighbours as brethren and kinsfolk. I do not know, Sir, [turning to Lord Elgin,] but in this way, from the kindly seeds which have been sown this week, in your visit to Boston, and that of the distinguished gentlemen who have preceded and accompanied you, our children and grandchildren, as long as this great Anglo-Saxon race shall occupy the continent, may reap a harvest worth all the cost which has devolved on this generation." [Cheers.]

Other speeches followed, which would not now interest my readers. In due time the assemblage broke up, and the guests streamed away over the lovely Common in all directions, forming even in their departure a wonderful and pleasing spectacle.

We Canadians remained in Boston several days, visiting the public institutions, presenting and receiving addresses, and participating in a series of civic pageants, the more enjoyable because to us altogether novel and unprecedented. Our hosts informed us, that they were quite accustomed to and always prepared for such gatherings.

CHAPTER LXIII.

VESTIGES OF THE MOSAIC DELUGE.

In chapters xlvi. and l. of this book, I have referred to certain conversations I had with Sir Wm. Logan, on the existence of ocean beaches, extending from Newfoundland to the North-West Territory, at an altitude of from twelve to fifteen hundred feet above the present sea level. Also of a secondary series of beaches, seven hundred feet above Lake Ontario, at Oak Ridges, eighteen miles north of Toronto; and a third series, one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet above the Lake, which I believe also occur at many points on the opposite lake-shore. In chapter xlvi. I mentioned the fact of my finding evidences of human remains at the very base of one of these lower beaches, at Carlton, on the Weston and Davenport Roads, near Toronto.

When I wrote those chapters, and until this present month of January, 1884, I was doubtful whether I should not be regarded as fanciful or unreliable. I have now, however, just seen in Good Words for this month, an article headed "Geology and the Deluge," from the pen of the Duke of Argyle, which appears to me conclusive on the points to which I allude, namely, first, that there was spread over the whole northern portion of this continent, a sea fifteen hundred feet above the land; secondly, that the depth of water was reduced to a thousand feet, and remained so during the formation of our Oak Ridges; and lastly, that a further subsidence of eight hundred feet took place, reducing the sea to the height of the Carlton beach; and that the latest of these subsidences must have occurred after our earth had been long peopled, and within historic times—probably at the date of the deluge recorded by Moses.

His Grace says:—

"I think I could take any one, however unaccustomed he might be to geological observation or to geological reasoning, to a place within a few miles of Inverary, and point out a number of facts which would convince him that the whole of our mountains, the whole of Scotland, had been lying deeper in the sea than it does now to a depth of at least 2,000 feet. . . . I believe that the submergence of the land towards the close of what is called the Glacial Period, was to a considerable extent a sudden submergence, probably more sudden to the south of the country than it was here, and that the Deluge was closely connected with that submergence. . . . The enormous stretch of country which lies between Russia and Behring's Straits is very little known, and almost uninhabited. It is frozen to within a very few feet of the surface all the year round. In that frozen mud the Mammoth has been preserved untouched. There have been numerous carcases found with the flesh, the skin, the hair and the eyes complete. . . . Has this great catastrophe of the submergence of the land to the depth of at least two or three thousand feet, taken place since the birth of Man? In answer to this question I must refer to the fact now clearly ascertained, that Man co-existed with the Mammoth, and that stone implements are found in numbers in the very gravels and brick earths which contain the bones of those great mammalia."