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have fo acqu'i-rd the habit of looking upon such immense areas as of 

 every day occurrence, that an initinl journey of three or four thousand 

 miles to begin operations is regarded with no greater feeling of excite- 

 ment or uneasiness than one of a tenth that distance in a much smaller 

 country. In Australia, however, the work of the geological surveys has 

 been comparatively local, and has never been applied to the enormous 

 areas with which we are familiar in this country. The only survey, then 

 which in point of extent can at all compare with that of Canada is that 

 of our gigantic neighbour to the south, where the area of surface to be 

 covered by its operations is not very different from our own, but where 

 certain conditions exist which render a comparison of the work of the 

 two surveys interesting from several standpo'nts. Thus, in the United 

 States, owing to their more southerly position, field parties are enabled 

 to spend a very much longer period in exploration than in Canada ; in 

 fact there is no reason why their field work cannot, in many portions, 

 be carried on throughout the entire yeat. In Canada, on the other 

 hand, owing to an early and often excessive snowfall, and to the extreme 

 cold ot winter, the period in which field operations can be carried on 

 with profit in some years scarcely exceeds a third of the whole time. 

 Then again, in many of the American states local or state geological 

 surveys are, or have been, carried on, by which the structure and min- 

 eral resources of each have been investigated by the state authorities 

 and at the state's expense, and thus the work of the general survey has 

 been greatly facilitated. It is true, in the earlier days, before the con- 

 federation of our own provinces, local surveys were carried on, to a 

 limited exeut only, in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward 

 Island, but the amount of time and money expended in these was com- 

 paratively insignificant, although the work done by the local geologists 

 was of very considerable value ; while m the provinces of Ontario and 

 Quebec, which have enjoyed legislative union for half a century, the 

 work was done by the Geological Survey of Canada with a very limited 

 staff indeed, for years scarcely exceeding in number more ihan half a 

 dozen persons in all. Contrasting also the facilities for work of the 

 British surveyors, and to a certain extent of the Americans as well, 

 with the difficulties which the members of the Canadian staff have to 

 encounter, the unfavourable position of the latter becomes most striking 



