Les Chaudières et l'arpenteur

Une transcription de cette description des chutes des Chaudières et du Trou-du-Diable a déjà été publiée dans ce blogue (billet du 30 déc. 2014 notamment). Elle a l'avantage d'avoir été rédigé alors que l'endroit était encore à son état natif, ou presque. Joseph Bouchette, son auteur, était un arpenteur, et, de toute évidence, il savait voir la topographie.

Voici maintenant pour référence le texte original (ou plutôt son image).

Extrait de Bouchette (1831), à propos de la «caverne» (Trou-du-Diable) de la chute de la Petite Chaudière, dans The British dominions in North America, or, A topographical and statistical description of the provinces of Lower and Upper Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the Islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, and Cape Breton [microform] : including considerations on land-granting and emigration : to which are annexed, statistical tables and tables of distances, &c. (1832)

(Note. – La page titre du volume porte l'année 1831 ; les références donnent 1832 comme date de publication.)

Le volume est accessible et téléchargeable ici.

Ajout (31 janv. 2015)

Tant qu'à montrer l'original, autant reprendre la transcription (cf. billet du 30 déc. 2014, lien plus haut), sur laquelle je peux intervenir. Bouchette décrit la Grande et la Petite Chaudière (Great et Little Kettle) ; ici, c'est seulement la Petite qui nous intéresse :

Joseph Bouchette (transcription)

«Above the falls the river is about 500 yards [455 m] wide, and its scenery is agreeably embellished by small grove-clad islets, rising here and there amidst the waters as they gently ripple by or rush on with more or less violence, to the vortex of the Great and Little Chaudière. The bed of the river is composed of horizontal strata of limestone, and the chute is produced by its deep and sudden subsidence, forming broken, irregular, and extraordinary chasms, one of which is called the Great, and the other, the Little Kettle or Chaudière. The former derives its name from its semicircular form and the volume of water it involves; but the latter bears no similitude to justify its appellation, the waters being precipitated into a broad, elongated, and straight fissure, extending in an oblique position north-west of the Great Kettle, and being thus strikingly contrasted with it.

The principal falls are 60 feet [18 m] high, and their width is measured by a chord of 212 feet [65 m]. They are situated near the centre of the river, and attract by their forcible indraught a considerable proportion of the waters, which, strongly compressed by the circular shape of the rock that forms the boiling recipient, descend in heavy torrents, struggling violently to escape, and rising in spay-clouds which constantly conceal the lower half of the falls, and ascend at irregular intervals in revolving columns much above the summit of the cataract.

The Little Chaudière may without much difficulty be approached from the Lower Canada shore, and the spectator, standing on a level with the top of the fall and on the brink of the yawning gap into which the floods are headlong plunged, surveys the whole length of chute and the depths of a cavern. A considerable portion of the waters of the falls necessarily escapes subterraneously after their precipitation, as much greater volume is impelled over the rock than finds a visible issue. Indeed this fact is not peculiar to the Little Chaudière, but is one of those curious characters of this part of the Ottawa of which other singular instances are observed; the waters in various places being swallowed by deep but narrow rents and fissures, leaving their natural bed almost dry, to dash on through some subterranean passage that defies the search of the explorer.»

Source de la transcription : Francine Brousseau, Historique du nouvel emplacement du Musée national de l’Homme à Hull, Musée nationaux du Canada, coll. Mercure, Histoire no 38, Ottawa, 1984, p. 11 et 15. (J’ai rétabli quelques coquilles d’après le pdf du texte original : J. Bouchette, The British Dominions in North America [...], p. 191-192.])