The Hudson has valuable shad and sturgeon fisheries, and has large commercial value. It is connected by the Erie Canal with Buffalo and the Great Lakes, while the Richelieu Canal connects it with Montreal. The Hudson River Railroad, connecting New York with Albany, runs along the east bank.
The river is named for the English navigator who explored it in 1609. Robert Fulton’s first successful experiment in steamboat navigation was made on this river in 1807.
The St. Lawrence, issuing from Lake Ontario, flows northeast for some seven hundred and fifty miles—part of the way forming the boundary between Canada and the United States—and falls into the Gulf of St. Lawrence by a broad estuary. But in its widest acceptation the name includes the whole system of the Great Lakes and their connecting streams, with a total length from source to mouth of two thousand miles, and a drainage basin of five hundred and sixty-five thousand two hundred square miles. It pours more fresh water into the ocean than any other river except the Amazon.
This mighty artery rises, under the name of the St. Louis, on the spacious plateau which sends forth also the Mississippi toward the Gulf of Mexico, and the Red River of the North toward Hudson Bay. Lake Superior (six hundred and two feet above sea-level), the next link in the chain, finds its way to Lake Huron through St. Mary’s River, whose rapids have a fall of twenty and one-half feet. Below Lake Huron, which receives Lake Michigan from the south, St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, Detroit River, and Lake Erie, maintain pretty nearly the same level (there is a fall of some eight feet, however, in Detroit River) till the river Niagara descends three hundred and twenty-six feet to Lake Ontario, which is itself still two hundred and forty-seven feet above the sea-level.
The St. Lawrence proper, with a number of lakelike expansions (such as the Lake of the Thousand Isles, of St. Francis, St. Peter, etc.), presents the character first of a river, and then of an estuary, down to the gulf. What is known as the Lake of the Thousand Islands contains about seventeen hundred islands, big and little, many of them extremely picturesque. This is a famous tourist region, with numerous hotels and other resorts as well as many fine private estates.
Prior to 1858 only vessels drawing not more than eleven feet of water could pass up the river above Quebec, but since then a channel has been made in the shallow parts of the river, three hundred feet wide and twenty-seven and one-quarter deep, which permits the passage up to Montreal of large vessels.
Between Lake Ontario and Montreal there are several rapids, which, however, may be all avoided by means of canals that have been constructed at a very great expense. Immediately above the [583] island of Montreal, the St. Lawrence is joined by its principal auxiliary, the Ottawa, from the northwest; and a little more than half-way between this confluence and Three Rivers, the highest point of tidal influence, the Richelieu from the south brings in the tribute of Lake Champlain. Other principal tributaries are the St. Maurice, the Saguenay, and the Batiscan. The width of the St. Lawrence varies from less than one to four miles; the estuary at its mouth is above one hundred miles across. During winter the river is frozen over and navigation closed.
Lakes.—Of the Great Lakes of North America, Lake Michigan lies within the United States, and the southern shores of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Superior are United States territory. These lakes were formed by the action of the glacier which once covered the continent as far south as the forty-second parallel, roughly speaking. They are remainders of much larger lakes and are of the utmost importance as waterways.
New England has very many smaller lakes, which are also the result of glacial action. The largest lake of the United States apart from the Great Lakes is the Great Salt Lake of Utah. The extremely low rainfall of this region and the intense evaporation consequent upon the high temperature are responsible for the salinity of the waters of the lake.
The Great Lakes.—The five Great Lakes cover a total area of over ninety thousand square miles, forming the largest collective mass of fresh water in the world.