We left Cobourg for Rice Lake which was distant about twelve or thirteen miles from thence. It was a delightful morning in October; and our road, though very bad, and in some places positively dangerous, where it descended into the deep ravines, was at the same time so picturesque that we were quite delighted with our drive, and particularly so when, emerging from the woods, we entered Hamilton-plains, and beheld in the distance the glittering waters of Rice Lake, and the gem-like islands which adorn its unruffled surface. Rice Lake, or the Lake of the Burning Plains, as it is called in the Indian language, is a fine sheet of water, twenty-seven miles in length from east to west, varying from two to three and a half miles in width. About six miles from its head on the northern shore it receives the waters of the Otonabee river, which, rising near the head-waters of the Madawaska, flows in nearly a westerly direction, into Balsam Lake, where it takes a more southerly direction, forming in its course a succession of beautiful lakes for upwards of sixty miles. Ten miles above Peterborough, and directly opposite my own farm in the township of Douro, it suddenly contracts its channel and becomes a rapid and impetuous stream. According to a survey ordered by the-government, it was ascertained that from a point on my farm, at the foot of Kawchewahnoonk Lake, and distant from Peterborough nearly ten miles, there is a fall of one hundred and forty-seven feet, affording an unlimited water-power, which has already been extensively applied not only in the town of Peterborough, where several fine flour and saw-mills have been erected, but also in the townships through which it flows. At Peterborough the rapids cease, from whence the river becomes navigable for steam-boats to the Rice Lake, at the distance of twenty-one miles, which it enters after a course of fully two hundred and fifty miles. The Indian river takes its rise close to Stony Lake, from which it is only divided by a narrow ridge of granite: this ridge has been cut across at the sole expense of the Hon. Zacheus Burnham and Dr. John Gilchrist, for the purpose of obtaining a larger supply of water for the use of their mills at Warsaw, in Dummer and Keane, in Otonabee, thus connecting the two rivers by this canal. This river flows through the townships of Dummer, Douro, and Otonabee, its whole course not exceeding thirty-five or forty miles, with the exception of a few small streams. No other river of consequence flows into Rice Lake. Our drive over the plains was truly delightful. New beauties presented themselves at every step. It can hardly be imagined what a relief it is to the eye, after travelling for miles through a dense forest, to see such a beautiful landscape suddenly burst on your sight.