The Champlain Canal,
Which Connects The River That Flows From
Whitehall Into The Lake With The Hudson River, Is
Sixty-Four Miles Long, Ending At The Erie Canal At
Junction Lock, Near Troy.
From Junction Lock
to Albany, along the Erie Canal, it is six miles;
or seventy miles from Whitehall to Albany by
canal route.
This distance has frequently been
given as fifty-one miles.
From the United States boundary line south-ward
it is a distance of seven miles to Isle la
Motte, which island is five and a half miles long
by one and three quarters wide, with a
lighthouse upon its northwest point. From the New
York shore of Monti Bay, across the end of Isle
la Motte to St. Albans, Vermont, is a distance of
thirteen and a half miles. Two miles south of
the island, on the west shore, is Point au Roche
light; and two miles and three quarters south of
it is Rocky Point, the terminus of Long Point.
Next comes Treadwell Bay, three miles across;
then two miles further on is Cumberland Head
and its light-house. West from Cumberland,
three miles across a large bay, is Plattsburgh, at
the mouth of the Saranac River, a town of five
thousand inhabitants. In this vicinity
Commodore Macdonough fought the British fleet in 1814.
These are historic waters, which have witnessed
the scene of many a bloody struggle between
French, English, and Indian adversaries. Off
Cumberland Head, and dividing the lake, is
Grand Isle, twelve miles in length and from
three to four in width.
The village of Port Kent is near the mouth of
the Ausable River, which flows out of the
northern Adirondack country. A few miles from the
lake is the natural wonder, the Ausable Chasm,
which is nearly two miles in length. The river
has worn a channel in the Potsdam sandstone
formation to a depth, in places, of two hundred
feet. Between high walls of rock the river is
compressed in one place to ten feet in breadth,
and dashes wildly over falls and rapids on its
way to Lake Champlain. It is said to rival the
famous Swiss Gorge du Triant.
Schuyler's Island, upon the shore of which we
passed Tuesday night, is nearly in the latitude of
Burlington, Vermont. The distance from Port
Douglass on the west, to Burlington on the east
side of Champlain, over an open expanse of
water, is nine miles and three quarters. We
breakfasted by starlight, and passed Ligonier's
Point early in the day. One mile and a half east
of it is the group of little islands called Four
Brothers. The lake grew narrower as we rowed
southward, until, after passing Port Henry Iron
Works, and the high promontory of Crown Point,
upon which are the ruins of the French Fort
Frederic, built in 1731, it has a width of only
two miles.
At eight o'clock P. M. we dropped anchor
under the banks of Ticonderoga, not far from the
outlet of Lake George.
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