On Feb. 15 a large deputation waited upon the Provincial Government and asked for a branch from Charlton to Gowganda through Elk Lake-a distance of about 40 miles. Different speakers stated that $5,000,000 had been invested locally or spent on development work; that the tonnage to and between Elk Lake and Gowganda had reached a total of 16,393; that $2,000,000 would be spent this year in similar work if the Railway was granted; that the country between Charlton and Elk Lake would make first-class farming land; that large quantities of coal (2,000 cars) would soon have to be imported and thus add to the returns from the spur line; that the excess charges already paid for freight would have almost built the branch line and paid for the rolling stock; that the Line should finally go on to Sudbury and that it would benefit the whole Montreal River District. W. R. Hensey of New York said that his people were ready to make much more extensive investments if there was a railway to bring in machinery and take out the ores and concentrates from the mills. He had examined 75 properties of which, he declared, 25 would be producing mines as soon as railway facilities were available. The Bishop Silver Mines, Limited, of which he was President, would guarantee $10,000 a year in freight over the proposed line for the next five years. Consideration was promised but, eventually, Porcupine won out. It was understood that Mr. J. L. Englehart, Chairman of the Railway, had suggested to New York capitalists interested in Gowganda that they should furnish the funds and the Railway Commission would build the road for them, turning over 65 per cent. of the gross receipts from passenger and freight traffic, etc., and allowing 412 per cent. on the investment. Something of this kind was done with the Timmins-McMartin syndicate and the extension of the Porcupine branch of the T. & N. O. into the Pearl Lake District.

In the Thunder Bay region-famous for its Silver Islet vein of the past-there had been much prospecting in late years but since 1904 there had been no actual production of silver. About $4,700,000 worth of silver had been produced prior to that and the Bureau of Mines (N. L. Bowen) reported in 1911 "bright prospects of important silver finds over a large area now little known." At Swastika, Munro and Larder Lake-in another part of the New Ontario region-development work proceeded during the year and shipments were promised in 1912. At Larder Lake the Reddick Mine started operations again in December and at this time (Dec. 16) The Haileyburian expressed renewed confidence in these fields where so much money had been spent in speculation. Up north of Fort William an effort was made to revive the gold activities of the Sturgeon Lake country with a renewal of work at the St. Anthony Mine. As to this region E. S. Moore had already reported to the Mines Bureau (1910) that "gold is widely distributed and one can locate a vein, small or

large, in many parts of the area. These veins are, however, as a rule very uncertain. The fissure at the St. Anthony is the only one which can be regarded as an important exception to this rule, and it is the only deposit which has given promise of really making a mine. While this area has been remarkable for the large number of fine specimens of free gold, these have been the products of secondary enrichment and concentration, and are not likely to continue to great depths." In the Lake of the Woods, where many old-time mining efforts had been made, the Mikado gold-mine was re-opened and the Secretary of the Kenora Board of Trade (R. H. Moore) wrote the Canadian Mining Journal* that:

The Lake of the Woods District, embracing two or three hundred square miles of country, only a small fraction of which has been touched by the bona fide miner, presents to-day one of the best opportunities for investigation that lie before the mining investor. The Lake itself is a body of water 120 miles long by an average width of 20 to 40 miles, dotted with numberless islands. Throughout the length and breadth of the district there occur bodies of gold-bearing ores. These are found from end to end of the Lake shores with surface veins, in some cases, running from three to as much as 60 feet in width. Assays have shown that the gold contents range from a low figure to $100 a ton.

Apart from Mining Northern Ontario in general attracted much attention during 1911 and its resources received continuous research and study. The 16,000,000 acres of estimated fertile soil in the Clay-belt became, under Railway construction and Government and commercial inquiry 20,000,000 of assured fertility. Between 1905, when the Temiskaming and Northern Railwaya product of Provincial Government enterprise and managed by a Commission with J. L. Englehart as Chairman-started operations, and 1910 its passenger service had increased from 258,000 to 1,944,000 and its freight from 875,000 to 5,216,000 tons. Cochrane this Provincial road met the National Transcontinental and, during 1911, the new Porcupine region and its pioneers were brought into close touch with Toronto. From Toronto to Cochrane was nearly as far as to Chicago or Quebec but when the pioneer reached his destination he found abundant trees and wood -hard for cleaning, good for fuel-and plenty of splendid soil. During 1911 these settlers came in ever-increasing numbers and the agricultural implements sent into the Temiskaming region had totalled 3,185 in the two previous years while the successful agricultural Fairs at Liskeard and Englehart, Haileybury and Charlton, illustrated the development of the country in this respect.

More men, more money, more roads, more publicity, remained, however, still the great consideration at the close of 1911. Much had been done in these directions. Mr. J. L. Englehart voiced

NOTE.-March 1, 1912.

his enthusiastic belief in the country upon every possible occasion. He addressed the Toronto Board of Trade on Apr. 6: "Is it not your duty to assist in opening up that great Northland, and to see that the settlers turn back from the trek of the West to the trek of the North-to hold our people in our own back-yard. The Province of Ontario, with the northland at its back-the Temiskaming country-has the possibilities and is a whole Dominion in itself." On Oct. 28, in speaking at length to the Canadian Club, Ottawa, he described the Larder Lake country as having silver possibilities which had been checked in development by extravagant prices for claims, and declared that there were also copper and gold and mica and nickel propositions in the same region; referred to the mineral resources of Swastika, the marvellous playground and sporting country of the Sesekinika, the area of remarkable agricultural land around Matheson, the Experimental Farm established by the Government at Monteith, the pulpwood region around Iroquois Falls, the marvel of the Porcupine, Cochrane as the centre of a land of wealth, the agricultural resources which formed "the bone and sinew and strength of the Temiskaming clay-belt."

Meantime, on June 13-18, the Toronto Board of Trade spent four days in travelling over this entire country so far as the T. & N. O. could take them. Cobalt with its population of 10,000 was visited and its mines inspected; Liskeard with its 3,700 people and rich farming community, Haileybury with a population growing from 464 in 1905 to over 5,000 in 1911, Cochrane, a railway centre, two years old with 2,000 homesteads taken up in its vicinity and 2,500 of a population; Monteith and Matheson, Englehart and Latchford, were all visited and the Lake Temagami region inspected. North Bay with its 8,000 people, great railway connections and steady development, like most of the other centres, entertained the visitors at a banquet with speeches steeped in optimism. To a similar gathering at Cobalt R. S. Gourlay, President of the Toronto Board, had said: "I believe that the youngest members of this Board here present will see the country of New Ontario with a population of ten million people. With that belief we have sketched out a persistent, steady, and vigorous campaign for the introduction of northern Ontario to the world as the best country yet waiting to be filled with settlers." Following this trip the Toronto Board sent F. W. Field of the Monetary Times to report upon the country in concise form but the result was not made public until 1912. Of the tour and the country F. D. L. Smith wrote in the Toronto Board's Annual Report as follows:

The tourists already knew that the Sudbury mines furnish the world with most of its nickel ore, that Cobalt camp has produced $50,000,000 of silver and that the Porcupine promises to be to Canada something of what the Rand is to South Africa. They did not realize that the Tema

gami and other tracts carry great potential wealth in their standing pine, or that the country this side of and beyond the Height of Land contains hundreds of square miles of spruce and poplar lying in easy proximity to great water powers capable of providing the hydraulic and electric energy necessary to convert the pulp-wood into pulp and paper. Most of all, they did not appreciate the agricultural possibilities of the North. They had heard of the Clay-belt but did not fully understand that it is an extensive tableland of fertile soil stretching beyond Lake Abitibi into Quebec on the east and something like 400 miles westward towards Lake Nipigon, with a total width of 50 to 200 miles. They did not know that it is drained by a series of deep rivers dropping over a northerly escarpment and flowing finally into James Bay. This splendid tract has been tapped by the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway while the National Transcontinental and Canadian Northern Railways, now under construction, will traverse it from east to west. The Board of Trade Delegates saw splendid crops of grain, hay and potatoes about New Liskeard and Englehart and there are equally promising tracts around Matheson and Monteith but Cochrane is the centre and jumping-off place for the great Clay-belt itself.

Taking Northern Ontario as a whole there were in 1911 20,000 square miles of forest reserved and set apart by the Government with resources of about nine billion feet of pine worth, approximately, $90,000,000. In the 20,000,000 fertile acres of this north country it was estimated that 30 counties of old Ontario could be re-created, that $100,000,000 a year could be obtained from crops grown on 160,000 farms, that 150 million cords of pulpwood were available, with water-powers on 25 great rivers running into the Moose and Albany of the further North. Enthusiastics wanted much done and done at once. The Toronto Telegram (Dec. 9) asked the Government to grant 2,000,000 acres of land to the T. & N. O. Commission with a vote of $1,000,000 and a free hand in developing the region. Other and varied demands had come also from its main centres. The Provincial Government did what it could during the year. Forest rangers were warned as to the necessity of effective work in preventing fires and more men were appointed; pulp-limits in Abitibi Lake district were offered for sale by the Government in January on a public competition basis but the terms were rather exacting and the offers not acceptable to the Department; a new Loan of $5,000,000 for T. & N. O. construction and other purposes was arranged and the Railway Commission itself purchased the Nipissing Railway charter running from Cobalt to Haileybury and hitherto competing with the T. & N. O.; arrangements were made to give Northern Temiskaming a new Judicial district running from Temagami north to James Bay; an exploratory survey was made under Government instruction of the James Bay region which S. C. Ellis in his Report estimated to have 90 per cent. of good clay soil, well adapted for agriculture, and plenty of timber for local use but with no mineral resources of economic value in sight; the Borden Government at Ottawa was asked, as its predecessor had been, for the usual bonus of $6,400 a mile on the Provincial Government Railway.

Speaking of this whole region, in Toronto on Dec. 18, Hon. W. H. Hearst, Minister of Lands, Forests and Mines, said: "What is known as New Ontario comprises 112,000,000 acres, about four times the extent of Old Ontario. There are 26,000,000 acres of land west of Port Arthur. A few years ago our vision of the land was one of barrenness and unproductiveness. The impression was largely created by the location of the C.P.R. main line and the 'Soo' line. Between these two lines of steel stretched vast reaches of rich timber reserves and hidden mineral wealth. Then, of course, there are the wonderful agricultural possibilities bound up with the great clay-belt, 20,000,000 acres in extent; land which will be producing when prairie farms have become impoverished and fertilizers necessary. More than that, the New Ontario climate is better and more wholesome than in the West. Splendid settlement has already taken place along the line of the T. & N. O. Railway and at New Liskeard, alone, last year $100,000 was spent on agricultural implements. In a few years there will be a widespread colonization of this Northland tributary to Toronto." At the close of the year Eastern Ontario found in the region along the T. & N. O. a market of 56 villages and towns where six years before there had been a wilderness; in the District of Nipissing, a population of 74,000 where in 1901 there had been 28,000. Passing to the general progress and condition of Ontario the following summary may be given-outside of agriculture and mining:

Assets of Public Utilities owned (1910) by 18 municipalities.
Fisheries produced in 1910-11.

Product (1910) 707 manufacturing Establishments.

Wages paid (1910) in 707 manufacturing establishments.
Number of Bank Branches, December 31, 1911.

Bank Clearing-house returns (1911)..

Municipal Bond Sales during 1911..

Aggregate capital of new incorporations in 1911.
Assets, Loan and Trust Companies, Dec. 31, 1910.
Fire Insurance-Amount at risk Dec. 31, 1911.
Fire Insurance-Premiums in 1911..
Fire Insurance-Paid for
Export Trade (1910-11).
Import Trade

Population, 1911 Census.

The Porcupine Goldfields and

Losses.

$33,834,057 $2,026,121 $122,726,571

$23,361,134 1,904

$2,298,808,410 $6,169,435 $516,672,350

$308,729,138 $459,803,042 $2,404,413

$1,311,733

$93,965,252

$207,201,080 2,523,318

The actual production of gold in the Porcupine during 1911 was about $40,000. Yet that region. was the mining and speculative sensation of the day, the subject of Government and expert investigation, the objective of large investments and heavy expenditures. The discovery of these gold-bearing quartz veins was made in 1908 and 1909 in a district of Northern

Cobalt Silver

Development