No. 5.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 299 



products of the Pacific and Atlantic Consts across a whole con- 

 tinent to meet each other, this will be cheaper in the end than 

 to sacrifice our own interests and those of the empire to the 

 Chinese policy of our neighbours in the South. 



The diversities of products in countries depends much on 

 differences in latitude, but there are also diversities depending 

 on longitude, and, fortunately our country possesses these in no 

 small degree. On our Atlantic coast we have rich fisheries and 

 minerals not possessed by the interior regions. In these last r 

 through all the great regions extending from Quebec to the 

 Rocky Mountains, we have vast breadths of fertile soil besides 

 many of the elements of mineral wealth, and varied kinds of 

 manufactures are growing up both on the coast and inland. 

 What is to hinder a direct exchange of commodities within our- 

 selves instead of an indirect exchunge under the most serious 

 disadvantages with the United States. Further, such direct 

 exchange would increase our trade with Great Britain and the 

 West Indies, and bind together the somewhat divergent sections 

 of our own population. The opening up of railway communica- 

 tion across the great western plain might do for us what a similar 

 process has done for New York. But from a railway terminus 

 on the Pacific shore we could stretch our commercial relations 

 over that great ocean, and bring all the treasures of the Orient 

 to enrich our markets. Further, in establishing communication 

 with British Columbia, we are not merely establishing a landing 

 place on the Pacific, though this would be an inestimable advan- 

 tage. British Columbia is in the mining point of view, one of the 

 richest portions of the earth's surface. It is of more value acre 

 for acre than any portion of the Eastern States or of Canada 

 proper. In an appendix attached to a recent report on the Pa- 

 cific railway, Mr. G. M. Dawson has collected some details as to 

 the mineral wealth of this region.- He mentions gold-fields 

 yielding now more than a million and a half of dollars annually. 

 In eighteen years British Columbia with only 10,000 inhabi- 

 tants has exported gold to the amount of 40,000,000 of dollars ; 

 and it is no exaggeration to say that with a larger population 

 and better means of conveyance this yield might be increased 

 twenty fold. 



Coal exists on Vancouver's Island and the neighbouring main- 

 land in inexhaustible abundance, and of excellent quality, and 



Vol. VIII. t No 5. 



