INDUSTRIAL PKOGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1873. Ixvii 



ISj degrees of longitude, the whole accomplished in forty- 

 days of actual travel. The return journey, of about 1400 

 miles, occupied thirty-five days. The necessary rapidity of 

 this journey of course did not permit a very minute investi- 

 gation of the country ; but among other practical results, 

 two seams of bituminous coal, one of them measuring from 

 eighteen to twenty feet in thickness, were discovered be- 

 tween the Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains, a fact 

 of much importance in connection with the location of the 

 Canadian Pacific Railway in that vicinity. 



Mr. G. N. Dawson, geologist of the British division of the 

 N^orth American Boundary Commission, to which reference 

 is made farther on, was also eno-ao-ed in the oreoloo-ical ex- 

 ploration of the region extending from the Lake of the Woods 

 to a considerable distance westward. Lignite-bearing strata 

 were found on the Souris River, and on some of the north- 

 western tributaries of the Missouri, a fact likely to be of much 

 interest in the future settlement of the country. 



Professor Bell has completed the examination necessary 

 for a geological map of the country lying to the north and 

 west of Lake Superior, and overlapping the region explored 

 by Mr. Dawson. 



Official surveys for the line of the Canadian Pacific Rail- 

 road have also been prosecuted, resulting in what is asserted 

 to be a practicable route, free from many of the general ob- 

 jections ; and Mr. Charles Horetzky, a member of the survey, 

 took numerous photographs of the scenery along the route. 

 We regret to learn that, by a fire in Ottawa, the greater part 

 of the notes and maps of this survey have been destroyed, 

 possibly making it necessary to repeat the reconnoissance. 



The labors of the Canadian Geological Survey in the better- 

 known portions of the Dominion are of less general interest, 

 although adding considerably to the details of our informa- 

 tion. The coal-fields of Cape Breton have been thoroughly 

 investigated during the present season by Mr. Charles Robb, 

 and his report is expected to prove of much statistical and 

 practical importance. 



We next proceed to the consideration of the more impor- 

 tant enterprises of the United States south of the forty-ninth 

 parallel. 



The first of these to be mentioned is the International 



