"Arrived at Ogdensburgh, on the American side of the river, I spent some time, while waiting the arrival of the train bearing Boston and other eastern passengers, in going through the extensive and commodious depot of the Northern Railway. The works are not quite completed. They will cover an area of some forty acres, and comprise warehouses for the stowage of corn and other produce, a fine passenger shed, and large engine-houses and sheds for cars. The quantity of corn and flour stored here in the fall is very large. Last year it was 80,000 barrels. Unfortunately, however, for the railways, the rate for conveyance of these staples is brought down by the competition of the steamers to a very low point; the charge from Toronto to Montreal being but one shilling per barrel of 218 lbs., or a farthing per ton per mile. "Opposite Ogdensburgh is the village of Prescott, remarkable as the scene of a deadly conflict during the rebellion, the traces of which it still exhibits, in dismantled houses, and a windmill in ruins. "On the evening of this day we entered a part of the river, called, from the unceasing abundance of islets which gem its surface, the 'Lake of the Thousand Isles.' These islets, above fifteen hundred in number, vary in size from tiny things, little bigger than an upturned boat, to areas of many hundred acres. They are a succession of rocky excrescences, mostly covered with wood, which grows, or overhangs, down to the water's edge. Some of them are cultivated, but the mass are just as nature left them, when--their broken and jutting strata having settled into bearings far down below the stream, on the morrow of some vast convulsion and upheaving of nature--the forest era was at last established. How long a time elapsed before the action of the weather had produced, from the hard face of the stone itself, soil enough for the lichen and the moss, or for these, in their turns, to become the receptacle of the seeds of forest trees, blown from some distant region--is a problem. In threading these islands, sometimes our vessel passed through tortuous passages apparently blocked up at the end, and within a few yards of land, but by a sudden turn emerged into fine large basins, and so wound and twined its way along. As the sun declined, every island made a full, clear reflection in the glassy surface of the water; and the boughs and branches, the flowers by the water's edge, the very marks upon the rocks, were repeated upside down, as if in a perfect mirror. The whole scene bore an air of such complete seclusion, that our noisy passage through it appeared like a rude intrusion into some fairy realm, before time uninvaded by mortal visits. The birds were disturbed from amongst the trees, and the wild ducks and other water-fowl skimmed away, scared at the splashing of our paddles and the panting of our engine.