severity of a Canadian winter, let me mention to you the experiments on bomb shells, made at Quebec some years ago, by a Major Williams, of the Artillery. I am acquainted here, with some gentlemen who witnessed the experiments: they were made in order to ascertain the force of the expansion of freezing water: they are curious; and you, perhaps, have not met with them in the course of your reading.

These experiments were made on iron shells of different sizes, from the 13-inch shell, to the cohorn of four inches diameter. The shells were nearly filled with water, and an iron plug was driven in at the fuze hole, by a sledge hammer. It was found, however, that the plug could never be driven so firmly into the fuze hole, as to resist the expanding ice, which pushed it out with great force and velocity, and a bolt or cylinder of ice immediately shot up from the hole: but when a plug was used that had springs, which would expand, and lay hold of the inside of the cavity, so that it could not possibly be pushed out, the force of the expansion split the shell.

The amazing force of expansion in congelation is also shewn from the distance to

which these iron plugs were thrown out of the fuze hole. A plug of two pounds and a half weight was thrown no less than 415 feet from the shell; the fuze axis was at an angle of 45; the thermometer shewed 51 degrees below the freezing point. Here you see ice and gunpowder performing the same operations. That similar effects should proceed from such dissimilar causes is very extraordinary.

The expanding force of freezing water acts powerfully on all bodies exposed to its operation. Wherever water lodges, and is at all confined, as in the cracks and fissures of rocks, or in the walls of houses, the effects of its expansion are felt. Masses of rock are severed from the mountain's brow, and precipitated into the valleys below. There the frost again acts upon them, and they are reduced from one size to another, until they become an earth.In agriculture, the effects of the expansion of freezing water are well known. The farmer finds, that by ploughing a strong soil, and exposing it to the operation of the winter's frost, the hard clods are broken down and pulverised, and the soil is better

fitted to receive the seed, and give it nourishment.

In Canada, the walls of the houses are usually plastered on the outside, to preserve the stone from moisture, and the consequent destructive effects of the frost. They find it, however, a very difficult matter to get plaster to adhere; particularly if exposed to the easterly wind, which, in one winter, destroys almost any plaster they can use. A composition has lately been tried, which promises to answer better. About a couple of pounds of Muscovado sugar are mixed with a bushel of lime; and it makes a very hard and durable mixture, for rough casting. In places the most exposed to easterly wind, it has remained hard and fast, after a fair trial.

Before I close this letter, let me mention to you the assistance the Canadians receive from their dogs, which they employ for a variety of domestic purposes. I formerly mentioned to you the speed and the hard work to which the Canadian horse was frequently put; but he is not the only beast of burden here, or, I should rather say, of draught. The Canadians make

much use of dogs for drawing light weights. You frequently see a single dog draw a small cart, or sledge, loaded with more than 200lbs. weight of different articles.In the winter, in addition to this weight, you see the man who drivess, tanding on the sledge, and dragged along with great speed, if there is a gentle declivity. The weight they are made to draw, is really incredible. Nor are they very large dogs, or of any particular species: you see them of all sorts and sizes, with carts or sledges, in proportion to their strength. The butchers employ them for transporting meat to their customers in different parts of the town: they use small carts in summer, and sledges in winter; the dogs are fitted with a complete set of harness, and two or three of them are sometimes yoked to the same cart or sleigh. People employ them too, in bringing water from the river; in dragging small carriages with children; and, in short, in all domestic purposes where a moderate weight is to be transported. They certainly might be used in Britain with great advantage, in many cases; because a boy can attend them, and make them draw a great deal more than he can carry.

LETTER XXI.

Quebec, 1808,

No part of the Canadian winter is more interesting than the conclusion of it, when the snow begins to disappear, and the ice in the rivers to break up, which is the case in the end of April.

One would naturally suppose, that six months frost and snow would have become insufferably tiresome to a stranger. I can assure you I have not found it so.

The winter may be divided into three seasons, or portions, as it were: for two months at the beginning, the snow is falling, and the frost becoming daily more severe. We are amused by making observations upon it, and by the novelty of our situation, and our consequent habits. The middle two months of severe frost is not without interest: we then see winter in all his majesty, after he has bound up the lakes and rivers in fetters of ice, and covered the earth as with a mantle.