COLONEL LE COMTE DUPRE'.

This gentleman commanded the Canadian Militia during the siege of 1775-6. He had first received a commission from the Marquis DUQUESNE, Governor General of Canada, as Captain. In June, 1755, he was appointed Major, and in the following November, Lieutenant Colonel. In consequence of his behaviour during the siege, on the 4th March, 1778, he was appointed Colonel Commandant for the City and District of Quebec, by General Sir GUY CARLETON. He continued in this extensive command for more than twenty years, and his conduct deservedly obtained the friendship, confidence, and gratitude of all the Militiamen of the District.

The following anecdote deserves to be known, it occurred in November, 1775:

The enemy was at the gates of the city, when three serjeants of the Canadian Militia formed a conspiracy to admit the Americans through a small wicket near the powder magazine, where one of them commanded a guard. Colonel DUPRE', going his rounds one night about eleven o'clock, became suspicious, and soon discovered this plot, and communicated it to Lieutenant Governor CRAMAHE'. The serjeants were secured, and kept in prison until the following May. They were then tried, and admitted that the city had been saved by the sagacity of Colonel DUPRE'. The Americans, enraged at the discovery of the plot, did all the damage they could to the Colonel's property. Four hundred were quartered at his house and land near Quebec, which they ruined. At his seigniory they destroyed his flour, and broke in pieces his furniture. On being offered a grant of land as a reward for his services, and as a compensation for his losses, he refused to accept it, saying, that he served out of regard to his country and his king, and required no remuneration.

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.

GEOLOGY.-GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE ENVIRONS. CONCLUSION.

No Picture of Quebec, in these enlightened days, will be considered complete, if it do not contain some information upon the geological structure of the site of that City and its environs, which are the subjects of its delineations. It is not consistent with the nature of the work, to enter into details; but, avoiding these, we propose to give a condensed outline of those geological features which will be most likely to come under the observation of the intelligent traveller. As, however, it it is usual to introduce geological descriptions by a topographical outline of the country they embrace, in conformity with that custom, the following slight one is offered.

The site of the metropolis of Lower Canada, when viewed from the river, must in all times, have fixed the eye of the stranger, whether crowned with modern architecture, as in the present day, or by the primeval forest, as Champlain first saw it; a sight which might well draw from his followers the exclamation of Quel bec, whence some writers derive Quebec. *

*This, however, is a disputed point. It appears by a reference to page 118 of this volume, that so far back as the time of Henry V. the word Quebec occurs in the Arms of the Earl of Suffolk. This interesting fact was introduced for the first time by A. Stuart, Esq. into a paper which he read before the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec.

This promontory, which forms so conspicuous a feature in the river scenery immediately above the Island of Orleans, is the narrow north-eastern termination of an oblong tongue of land which, rising from the valley of Cap Rouge, about 8 miles southwestward of Quebec, attains at the latter place its extreme altitude of 330 feet above the St. Lawrence, whilst its greatest breadth, which lies towards the western extremity and nearly opposite to the parochial church of St. Foy, is about 2 miles.

The whole of this feature is insulated by a valley out of which it appears to rise, like the back of a leviathan from the deep. Through the southern branch of this valley flows, between rocky precipices, the noble St. Lawrence, pressed by its hundred wings of commerce, and here attaining an extreme breadth of two miles, * while the northern branch spreads out into low alluvial lands, through which meander the St. Charles and St. Michel rivers, whose waters, though from western and northern sources in the mountains which close the visual horizon on this side from east to west, become nearly simultaneously confluent with the St. Lawrence at the Vacherie.

The valley of Cap Rouge, which breaks the continuation of the tongue of land before mentioned to south-westward, is in the present day, characterized only by an insignificant stream; but it appears to be probable that the St. Lawrence once passed an arm this way round, thereby insulating all the land to the right of it.

*The breadth of the river from the Queen's Wharf across to McKenzie's Wharf, has been measured on the ice, and found to be 1133 yards, 2 feet 9 inches.

Casting the eyes around from any elevated position in this metropolis, they will pass over all the four Grand Divisions into which rocks have been divided, viz. the Primary, the Transition, the Secondary and the Tertiary; sometimes naked and prominent, at others deeply covered by alluvions, diluvions or vegetable deposits.

Primary Rocks.

The Primary or granitic portion of our formations within view, is confined to that range of mountains and its lateral spurs which, commencing at Cape Tourment, 30 miles below Quebec, on the northern shore of the St. Lawrence, where it forms a conspicuous dome-shaped headland, trends away to the westward in a series of consecutive mountains and vallies, the former holding a course nearly parallel to the St. Lawrence, and preserving an average distance from it of ten or twelve miles. Beyond this line of demarcation to the northward, for many miles, no "Land of Promise" for the settler is met with; and the semi-civilized Indian traverses this inhospitable region, in the pursuit of the moose and the caribou, consoled by the reflection, that here, at least, for many years to come, his wanderings will suffer little interruption from the white

man.

The highest point of this range is considered not to exceed 2000 feet of altitude above the St. Lawrence, but usually falls much short of it. The country which it traverses has been explored, but by no individual possessed of sufficient geological knowledge to allow him to describe the rocky masses met with in language sufficiently scientific to be intelli

gible to the initiated. However, an examination of those off-spurs and boulders which lie nearest the town, has led those who understand the subject to infer, that granite, granitic gneiss, mica slate, (rarely), syenite, syenitic gneiss, horneblende slate, and primary greenstone, are the species of rocks which most prevail.

Transition Rocks.

The term Transition in Geology, is becoming obsolete; yet it is one of great convenience, and liable to no abuse when employed by those who study facts more than theories. We will, therefore, continue to employ it in the designation of certain rocks which are largely developed in the immediate neighbourhood of Quebec, and on one or two members of which, indeed, we consider that City to stand.

When placed on the highest summit of Cape Diamond, 350 feet above the river at its base, all the natural stony fixed features of ground around and beneath us on this side the valley of the St. Charles and on the opposite side of the St. Lawrence, consist of Transition rocks.-This formation characterizes both shores of the St. Lawrence for some distance above Quebec; but below it appears to be, for the most part, confined to the islands and southern shore, which it exclusively occupies for many miles.

The members which compose this formation, in the extent to which we now limit our attention, are the following:-Clay slate, greywacke, compact limestone and limestone conglomerate: the two first occur in very subordinate quantity, while the two former abound and frequently alternate with