with stone, and extending along the shore in a sufficient depth of water
to admit vessels riding easily at anchor under their lee. Many lives
and much property would undoubtedly be saved every year by such
constructions; for it is a difficult matter for a vessel to enter these
narrow rivers in a heavy gale of wind, and if she misses the entrance,
she is very likely to go ashore.

Another very important work to the navigation of the lakes is the
deepening of the channel in Lake St. Clair.

Between Lakes Huron and Erie lies Lake St. Clair, a shallow sheet of
water, some twenty miles in length, through which all the trade of the
Upper Lakes is obliged to pass. At the mouth of the river which connects
this lake with Huron, there is a delta of mud flats, with numerous
channels, which in their deepest parts have not more than ten feet of
water, and would be utterly impassable, were not the bottom of a soft
and yielding mud, which permits the passage of vessels through it, under
the impulse of steam or a strong wind.

Mr. James L. Barton, a gentleman long connected with the lake-commerce,
thus wrote some years ago upon this subject to the Hon. Robert
McClelland, then chairman of the House Committee on Commerce:--

"These difficulties are vastly increased from the almost impassable
condition of the flats in Lake St. Clair. Here steamboats and vessels
are daily compelled in all weather to lie fast aground, and shift their
cargoes, passengers, and luggage into lighters, exposing life, health,
and property to great hazard, and then by extraordinary heaving and
hauling are enabled to get over. Indeed, so bad has this passage become,
that one of the largest steamboats, after lying two or three days on