The River St. John, flowing out of the vast forests of Maine, stretches four hundred and fifty miles from its sources to the sea. The Micmac Indians of its upper reaches called it Ouangondie, while the Etechemins of the lower waters and the St. Croix valley named it Looshtook, or the "Long River." Its sources interlock in the Maine forests, at two thousand feet elevation, with those of the Penobscot flowing south and the Chaudiere flowing north to the St. Lawrence, near Quebec. At first the St. John flows northwest, then east and southeast to its Grand Falls, then by a winding southern course to the Bay of Fundy. For a long distance its upper waters are the national boundary between Maine and Canada. It receives several large tributaries and drains a valley embracing seventeen millions of acres. The immense forest wilderness of Maine, wherein are the sources of these streams, is seven times the size of the famous "Black Forest" of Germany. Upon the upper St. John waters are various villages of French Acadians, the descendants of those who were driven out of Nova Scotia in the eighteenth century. It receives the Allegash, St. Francis, Madawaska, Grand and St. Leonard's Rivers, and thus comes to its cataract with augmented waters--the Grand Falls. Above, the stream expands into a broad basin, flowing from which its enormous current is compressed into a narrow rock-bound canyon, and after running down a moderate incline suddenly plunges over the front and sides of an abyss. This is about sixty feet deep and formed of slate, the water falling into the cauldron below, and also over the outer ledges in minor cascades. Then, with lightning rapidity the foaming current dashes through another canyon of two hundred and fifty feet width for three-fourths of a mile, the walls, of dark, rugged rock, being one hundred and fifty feet high. Within this terrific chasm there is a descent of sixty feet more, in which the waters do not rush along as in the rapids below Niagara, but are actually belched and volleyed forth, as if shot out of ten thousand great guns, with enormous boiling masses hurled into the air and huge waves leaping high against the enclosing cliffs. This ungovernable fury continues throughout most of the passage, the stream at times heaping itself all on one side, and giving brief glimpses of the rocky bed of the chasm. Finally an immense frothy cataract flows over into a lower basin, said to be unfathomable, where the stream becomes tranquil and then goes along peacefully between its farther banks. Majestic scenery surrounds these Grand Falls, there being high mountains in all directions.