1850.] Description of the Lake. 23 on the opposite side, so that on the north shore the cliffs rise steeply from the water, whilst on the south it is said the ascent is more gentle; the abrupt faces being inland. "This difference of formation, joined to the prevalence of northerly winds, has given very different aspects to the two shores; the southern showing broad sand-beaches and remarkable hills of sand, whereas on the north shore the beaches are of large angular stones, and sand is hardly to be seen except at the mouths of the rivers. The rivers of the southern shore are often silted up, and almost invariably, it is said, barred across by sandspits, so that they run sometimes for miles parallel to the lake, and separated from it only by narrow strips of sand projecting from the west. "The continuity of this rim occasions a great similarity among the little rivers on the north and east shores, and no doubt else. where. They all come in with rapids and little falls near the lake, and more considerable ones farther back. These streams are said often to have in their short course a descent of five or six hundred feet. "This huge basin is filled with clear, icy water, of a greenish cast, the average temperature about 40, Fahrenheit.* Its surface is six hundred and twenty-seven feet above the level of the sea; its depth, so far as actual soundings go, is a hundred and thirty-two fathoms, that is, one hundred and sixty-five feet below the sea level; but Bayfield conjectures it may be over two hundred fathoms in some places.t "In geographical position the lake would naturally seem to lie within the zone of civilization. But on the north shore we find we have already got into the Northern Regions. The trees and shrubs are the same as are found on Hudson's Bay; spruces, birches, and poplars; the Vaccinia and Labrador tea. Still more characteristic are the deep beds of moss and lichen, and the alternation of the dense growth along the water, with the dry, barren, lichenous plains of the interior. Here we are already in the Fur Countries; the land of voyageurs and trappers; not from any accident, but from the character of the soil and climate. Unless the mines should attract and support a population, one sees not how this region should ever be inhabited. "This stern and northern character is shown in nothing more clearly than in the scarcity of animals. The woods are silent, and as if deserted; one may walk for hours without hearing an * Logan, and Dr. Charles T. Jackson. A recent letter from the lake, dated July 1, 1849, mentions the temperature of the surface, at eight o'clock, P. M., as 37°. According to Bayfield's paper in the Transactions of the Literary and Scientific Society of Quebec (cited in Bouchette's "British Dominions in North America," I., 128, et seq.). animal sound, and when he does, it is of a wild and lonely character; the cry of a loon, or the Canada jay, the startling rattle of the arctic woodpecker, or the sweet, solemn note of the whitethroated sparrow. Occasionally you come upon a silent, solitary pigeon sitting upon a dead bough; or a little troop of gold-crests and chickadees, with their cousins of Hudson's Bay, comes drifting through the tree-tops. It is like being transported to the early ages of the earth, when the mosses and pines had just begun to cover the primeval rock, and the animals as yet ventured timidly forth into the new world. "The lake shows in all its features a continental uniqueness and uniformity, appropriate to the largest body of fresh water on the globe. The woods and rocks are everywhere the same, or similar. The rivers and the islands are counterparts of each other. The very fishes, although kept there by no material barrier, are yet different from those of the other lakes. Where differences exist between the various parts, they are broad and gradual." pp. 123–125. But here is something better than even beautiful description. "Aug. 20th. We stopped this morning at a little settlement on the Grand Manitoulin, whither the Indians come yearly to receive their presents.' A few soldiers are stationed here to keep order on these occasions. It is a significant fact that, both here and at Mackinaw, the ground-rent paid by the British and United States governments to the original lords of the soil goes under the name of a present, as if dependent on the mere goodwill and pleasure of the tenants. "On one occasion, the Captain saw a general collection of the tribe from all quarters, as far as the Red River settlement on the one hand, and Hudson's Bay on the other. There were in all about five thousand six hundred persons, men, women, and children. As usual they carried little or no food with them, and such a multitude soon exhausted the fish and game of the neighbourhood. Terrible want ensued, and as the English authorities for some time refused any assistance, many were near starvation. Some families, to his knowledge, went three days without food; others lived on small bits of maple sugar, which were divided with scrupulous accuracy. At last the officer in charge ordered some Indian corn and grease' to be served out to them. The Captain was standing with the officers when this order was executed, and understood (though they did not) the speech the chief made to his men on the occasion. When strangers come to visit us,' said he, 'we look round for the best we have, to offer to them. But we must take this, or starve.' "If it be said that the strict law of nations is not applicable to 1850.] The Causes of Living Beings. 25 dealings with savages, any more than the municipal law to the management of children,—at least they should have the benefit of the principle. If we claim to stand in loco parentis with regard to them, we should show some parental solicitude for their welfare. But the poor savages fall between the two stools, and get neither law, equity, nor loving-kindness at our hands. It is difficult to see, for instance, why the annual stipend should not be paid to the Indians at places in a measure convenient for them to receive it, say at La Pointe, on the American side, and Fort William, the Red River settlement, and the like, on the Canadian, instead of practically cheating them out of it in this way."pp. 127, 128. This beautiful Narrative is the fitting introduction to the proper object of the work, a picture of the nat ural history of Lake Superior. This is given in twelve chapters, one by Dr. J. L. Le Conte, upon the Coleoptera; one by Dr. A. A. Gould, upon the shells; one upon the birds, by J. E. Cabot; one upon Lepidopterous Insects, by Dr. T. W. Harris; the rest, upon the vegetation, the geology, and the zoology, by Mr. Agassiz.* Upon most of these chapters we have no time to touch, even in the most superficial manner. They are mostly catalogues, with scientific descriptions of new species, the latter as little susceptible of abridgment as the former. All contain valuable contributions to natural history, of surprising extent, if we consider the time and circumstances in which the observations and collections were made. When before did a summer vacation yield such a harvest! The first chapter, under the title of "Northern Vegetation compared with that of the Jura and the Alps," contains a contribution of high and noble thoughts, — of interest not merely to the naturalist, but to every thinker, upon the circumstances influencing animal and vegetable life, and their subordination to the ever acting will and thought of the Creator. Living beings are not scattered at random. Their distribution is regulated by laws giving to each region its peculiar aspects. The physical conditions of climate; temperature, moderate or in extremes; the moisture of the atmosphere; its pressure; the amount of light; the electric state of the air; the chemical nature of the soil, and its relations to moisture; * Cum Enumeratione Lichenum, ab Edv. Tuckerman, Cantabr. VOL. XLIX. - 4TH S. VOL. XIV. NO. I. 3 these are all powerful and ever active; and the action of all is completely modified by a change in the action of any one. Add the form of continents, the bearing of their shores, the height and direction of their mountains, the shapes and currents of contiguous oceans, the absence or presence of inland lakes, the prevalence and direction of winds, the elevation or depression of plains or mountain plateaus. A chain of mountains running east and west divides Europe into a northern and a southern zone. Chains running north and south in North America give to Massachusetts the winter of Lapland and the summer of Italy. A northwest wind in February sinks the thermometer in Boston to zero; it opens the soil on the west of Ireland for the plough. "But however active these physical agents may be, it would be very unphilosophical to consider them as the source or origin of the beings upon which they show so extensive an influence. Mistaking the circumstantial relation under which they appear for a causal connection, has done great mischief in natural science, and led many to believe they understood the process of creation, because they could account for some of the phenomena under observation. But however powerful may be the degree of the heat; be the air ever so dry, or ever so moist; the light ever so moderate, or ever so bright; alternating ever so suddenly with darkness, or passing gradually from one condition to the other; these agents have never been observed to produce any thing new, or to call into existence any thing that did not exist before. Whether acting isolated or jointly, they have never been known even to modify to any great extent the living beings already existing, unless under the guidance and influence of man, as we observe among domesticated animals and cultivated plants. This latter fact shows indeed that the influence of the mind over material phenomena is far greater than that of physical forces, and thus refers our thoughts again and again to a Supreme Intelligence for a cause of all these phenomena, rather than to so-called natural agents." - p. 142. Taking all physical circumstances into consideration, and giving them their widest influence, there are innumerable facts which they go not at all towards accounting for. Why should the magnolia and the cactus be found rather in America, the kangaroo in New Holland, the elephant and rhinoceros in Asia and Africa? There are other influences, higher and deeper than any 1850.] Creation the Expression of a Thought. 27 we see, on which life depends. However intimately connected with climate, however apparently dependent on its influences, life, vegetable or animal, is in reality independent of them. They are only, at best, modifying circumstances. They make no approximation to creative power. They make only more necessary the existence and intervention of a Creator. "The geographical distribution of organized beings displays more fully the direct intervention of a Supreme Intelligence in the plan of the Creation, than any other adaptation in the physical world. Generally, the evidence of such an intervention is derived from the benefits, material, intellectual, and moral, which man derives from nature around him, and from the mental conviction which consciousness imparts to him, that there could be no such wonderful order in the Creation, without an omnipotent Ordainer of the whole. This evidence, however plain to the Christian, will never be satisfactory to the man of science, in that form. In these studies evidence must rest upon direct observation and induction, just as fully as mathematics claims the right to settle all questions about measurable things. There will be no scientific evidence of God's working in nature until naturalists have shown that the whole Creation is the expression of a thought, and not the product of physical agents. Now what stronger evidence of thoughtful adaptation can there be, than the various combinations of similar, though specifically different, assemblages of animals and plants repeated all over the world, under the most uniform and the most diversified circumstances ? When we meet with pine-trees, so remarkable for their peculiarities, both morphological and anatomical, combined with beeches, birches, oaks, maples, &c., as well in North America as in Europe and Northern Asia, under most similar circumstances; when we find again representatives of the same family with totally different features, mingling so to say under low latitudes with palm-trees and all the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics; when we truly behold such scenes and have penetrated their full meaning as naturalists, then we are placed in a position similar to that of the antiquarian who visits ancient monuments. He recognizes at once the workings of intelligence in the remains of an ancient civilization; he may fail to ascertain their age correctly, he may remain doubtful as to the order in which they were successively constructed, but the character of the whole tells him that they are works of art, and that men, like himself, originated these relics of bygone ages. So shall the intelligent naturalist read at once, in the pictures which nature presents to him, the works of a higher Intelligence; he shall recognize in the minute perforated cells of the Coniferæ, which differ so wonderfully from those of other |