energies of nature. Snow thus becomes a protecting garment until the April sun warms the air. The latent heat of the earth then begins to be developed, and water, gradually permeating the ground through every pore, renders friable the most impracticable soils. For a month before the apparent termination of a Canadian winter, vegetation is active on the surface of the earth, under a considerable depth of snow. In Western Canada the earth is seldom frozen more than twelve or eighteen inches deep. The summer temperature is frequently 90°, and occasionally rises to 105°; the harvest is brought rapidly to maturity; and it is impossible not to be impressed by this beneficent arrangement of Providence in giving a summer of great and almost tropical heat, as a necessary compensation for a rigorous winter. American lands, in some portions of the far west,' may perhaps be richer than those of Canada; but over the boasted prairies of Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas, there stalks a destroyer, more terrible than the Indian in his most savage mood, and far more certain of his prey. Fever seizes annually its thousands of English, Irish, Scotch, and German labourers, and they are hurried in multitudes to the grave. Canada is no elysium of pleasure, no Utopia of wealth, but a country in which an industrious emigrant may form for himself a happy home, and enjoy the greatest of human blessings-independence and health; and to these advantages are added political freedom for himself, free education for his children, a pure administration of justice, and a fair prospect of affluence as the reward of industry and economy." * There is one great source of future prosperity to Canada which is just beginning to be appreciated-we refer to the western trade. The world is familiarised with the magic growth of some American cities, the sites of which were but yesterday swamps or primeval forests. The growth of Chicago, at the foot of Lake Michigan, has been probably more rapid than that of any other city in the Union. In 1831 Chicago was only an Indian trading port; in 1841 it was a small wooden prairie A Comparative View of the Climate of Western Canada considered in relation to its Influence upon Agriculture,' by Mr. Henry Youle Hind, Lecturer on Chemistry and Natural Philosophy. Mr. Hind, in a table, shows the much greater equability of temperature of Toronto than of the Western States. The summer mean temperature of the following places is thus given as the average of ten years:— town consisting of 5000 inhabitants. It is now an immense city, with rows of stately streets and noble public buildings, the emporium of an immense trade, and with a population of 150,000 souls. And yet this amazing progress represents but feebly the rapid commercial growth of some of the North-Western States. The problem of vital interest to Canada is the line of transit which this trade shall take. A short time since,' says the GovernorGeneral of Canada, 'a very intelligent Norwegian gentleman, who had settled at Green Bay, high up on Lake Michigan, called on me. He assured me that the deep conviction of himself and the persons settled about him was, that their own trade and that of the North-Western regions beyond them must ultimately look to Montreal as its port, and the St. Lawrence as its highway to the ocean.' 'And I believe,' adds Sir Edmund Head, that no man can at present estimate the volume of the tide of commerce which twenty years hence will pour down this channel.'* Indeed the American cities on the great lakes are already opening a direct trade through the Canadian waters with Europe; more than twenty vessels having in the year 1860 passed through the Canadian canals, as soon as the navigation was open, for English ports. To secure this valuable trade the Canadian Government has recently taken the bold and judicious step of abolishing the tolls on the St. Lawrence and on the Canadian canals, and has established free ports at the two extreme ends of the province; and a select committee of the Legislature has made the somewhat startling proposition for establishing a daily line of screw-steamers of not less than 2000 tons burthen, and with a speed of from ten to twelve miles per hour, between Liverpool and Quebec, to be connected with another line of steamers of 1000 tons burthen, of the same speed, to the Welland canal and railway, Toronto, or Hamilton; the communication to be carried on by a line of similar steamers in Lakes Erie or Huron to Chicago. By this route it is said that first-class passengers could reach Chicago from Liverpool, over the Grand Trunk Railway by Quebec, in twelve days; emigrants and light freights, by rail and water combined, in fifteen days, and, by steamer throughout, in fifteen or twenty days; thus shortening the passage from sixty-two days to, if needed, twelve; and reducing the cost of travelling and transport 25 and 50 per cent. How far the capital might be forthcoming for this grand scheme of communication we are unable to say, but the proposers calculate, perhaps with some reason, upon a postal subsidy being given to the ocean steamers running *Despatch, August 30, 1858. between between Liverpool and Quebec, such as is now paid to the line of steamers between Liverpool and New York, upon the understanding that a daily line shall be established between Quebec and Liverpool in summer, and a weekly or a semi-weekly line, as might be required, between Portland and Liverpool in the winter. All the public works of Canada seem to indicate a consciousness of the great future which awaits the country; for they seem to be planned on so colossal a scale as to be out of all proportion to the wants of the existing generation. It is a remarkable proof of colonial energy and resources, that a country numbering less than three millions of people should possess not only the most magnificent and perfect inland navigation in the world, but in connection with it a system of railways unequalled on the American continent. During the last ten years the following lines of railway have been completed and opened in Canada :— The Grand Trunk .. The Great Western The Northern The Buffalo and Lake Huron Other lines of a more local character, 1,112 miles. The charge which the province has taken upon itself in aiding the construction of these great works represents a capital of 4,161,150, or 249,6697. per annum. The unparalleled bridge across the St. Lawrence, of which its great engineer lived just long enough to hear that the last tube had been fixed (and of which an admirable account is given in the magnificent work which stands last in the heading of this article), would alone place Canada high among advanced and enterprising states. The complete financial collapse of this gigantic undertaking is a public misfortune, but the line is so essential to the progress of the country, that every effort ought to be made to relieve it from its difficulties, and present disappointment, we trust, will be amply compensated by future prosperity. But the most interesting, and, looking to the future, perhaps the most important, Those not familiar with the subject,' adds the Report, are startled at the idea of a daily line, but when reduced to figures it will not be found formidable: 2000 tons per day for 200 days, the length of the season, makes only 400,000 tons. We find the Erie Canal, before its enlargement, with locks of only 90 x 15 x 4 in 1853, conveyed 4,247,892 tons, valued at 207,199,570 dollars, in which tolls amounting to 3,204,718 dollars were received. To show that the principal portion of this trade is carried on in the summer season, we find that out of 3,129,118 barrels of flour conveyed from Buffalo to New York in 1856, only 482,000 barrels were conveyed by railway during the five months the Erie Canal was closed.' railway railway in Canada, is that which passes through the valley of the Ottawa, and which will eventually be extended to Lake Huron and the Sault Ste. Marie. The day may not be distant when this route will be adopted for a railway communication from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The importance of such a line, as a means of shortening the communication between Europe and China, and of laying open the resources of an immense and at present little known territory, cannot be exaggerated. But to this subject we shall hereafter advert. We have only touched upon a few of the material resources of Canada.* Upper, or, as it is now termed, Western Canada, *The productions and commerce of Canada are represented in the following Tables: is more especially the seat of British enterprise and industry, and is undoubtedly the most important portion of the Canadian territory. The plain of Western Canada contains an area of about 20,000 square miles. It is a tract of alluvial soil of great fertility, and covered with enormous forests of maple, beech, oak, basswood, ash, elm, hickory, walnut, chestnut, cherry, birch, cedar, and pine. On the borders of the lakes, and on the banks of the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, as well as on those of the Thames and the Severn, the soil is abundantly rich; but the largest and finest tracts of land are in Western Canada. Towards the gulf of the great river the country is more mountainous and rocky; but the scenery of that portion of Canada possesses features of striking grandeur. The capes and headlands increase in boldness and altitude until they are interrupted by an enormous fissure in the granitic range through which the Saguenay flows: the waters of this great tributary run beneath a perpendicular bank, the river being in some places 1000 feet deep. The startling and picturesque features of the Saguenay,' says a recent writer, 'cannot be beheld without awakening in the heart sensations of wonder, fear, and reverence.'* The St. Lawrence, of which the great lakes may be considered as expansions, has its true source in the Lake of the Woods to the north-west of Lake Superior, and in its course to the sea it traverses a distance of 2000 miles. Considered in all its features it is perhaps the most magnificent river in the world. Its embouchure is 120 miles in width; even its tributaries would be considered streams of the first magnitude in Europe, and several of those which fall into the Ottawa are more considerable than the British Thames. Without them the forests that cover the greater portion of the Canadian territory could possess little commercial value, whereas, by the facilities which Canada thus possesses for transporting their produce to the sea, these forests become an almost inexhaustible source of wealth. In 1852 the timber exported was valued at 1,351,7137., and in 1859 at 2,415,9907., and a million cwts. of pearl and pot ashes are annually A letter recently published in the Canadian News' gives the following report of the salmon-fishing in Canadian streams: On the north shore the fishing is capital. His Excellency Sir Edmund Head returned the other day from a short excursion with 200 salmon.' A clever book on Canadian sport, published anonymously by Longman, and edited by Sir James Alexander, places the salmonfishing of the Lower St. Lawrence among the best, if not the best in the world. There are some thirty fine streams, tributaries of the St. Lawrence, on the north side between Quebec and the Gulf, all teeming with salmon, and not more than six of these have been fished at all. The Saguenay is the only one to which a steamer plies, and, consequently, it has received more than its fair share of attention, but its yield has continued as great as ever. Vol. 109.-No. 217. C manufactured |