Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1894 — A GLORIOUS RIVER. [ARTICLE]

A GLORIOUS RIVER.

The Beautiful St. Lawrence and Its Many Quaint Wonders. Nature’s Realm. The St. Lawrence is a phenomenon among rivers. No other river is fed by such gigantic lakes. No other river is so independent of the elements. It despises alike rain, snow and sunshine. Ice and wind may be said to be the only things that affect its mighty flow. Something almost as phenomenal as the St. Lawrence itself is the fact that there is so little generally known about it. It might be inferred that not 1 per cent, of the American public are aware of the fact that among all the great rivers of the world the St. Lawrence is the only absolutely floodless one. Such, however, is the case. The St. Lawrence despises rain and sunshine. Its greatest variation caused by drought or rain hardly ever exceeds a foot or fourteen inches. The cause of this almost everlasting sameness of volume is easily understood: The St. Lawrence is fed by the mightiest bodies of fresh water on earth. Immense as is the volume of water it pours into the ocean, any one who has traversed all the immense lakes that feed it, and for the surplus waters of which it is the only outlet to the sea, wonders that it is not even more gigantic than it is. Not one drop of the water of the five great lakes finds its way to the ocean "save through this gigantic, extraordinary and wondrously beautiful river. No wonder, then, that it should despise the rain and defy the sunshine.