Current Literature. 55 



Over 1500 prosecutions for forest offences — mainly tree cut- 

 ting, fire setting, and game hunting — resulting in $10,000 fines 

 and $2,000 damages attest the departments' attempts towards pro- 

 tection of the forests from the natives. Fire protection is mainly 

 by cleaned belts. 63 fires (44 from unknown causes) destroyed 

 98 acres during the year of report. The settlement of boundaries 

 seems to demand a large share of the department's attention. 



Some discouraging features in the past year have been the 

 transfer of certain undemarcated forests from the control of the 

 Forest Department to District Councils, the historic trouble with 

 communal forests, the cutting of millions of saplings, annually 

 for hut wattles and the lack of funds. 



J. H. W. 



Canada's Fertile Northland. A glimpse of the Enormous Re- 

 sources of Part of the Unexplored Regions of the Dominion. 

 Bdited by Captain Ernest J. Chambers. 139 pp., 17 Half-tone 

 Illustrations and 5 Colored Maps in Case. Published under Di- 

 rection of R. E. Young, Department of Interior, Ottawa, 1907. 



Contains the evidence heard before a Special Committee of the 

 Dominion Senate during the session of 1906-07 and the report 

 based upon it. 



In the evidence heard before the Committee some striking facts 

 stand out prominently, a number of which are summarized in the 

 Introduction. Mr. A. P. Low, Director of the Geological Sur- 

 vey, for example, said that Ungava possesses a belt of iron- 

 bearing rock, probably 100 miles long and 200 to 300 miles wide, 

 which in the future will furnish a large supply of iron for 

 Canada. He also said that in the region north of Lake Winnipeg 

 is an area of 5,000 to 10,000 square miles of coutry adapted for 

 agriculture. 



Mr. W. F. Breden, a member of the Alberta Legislature, esti- 

 mated the area of the available agricultural lands in northern Al- 

 berta and Mackenzie at 100,000,000 acres. Others testified that 

 at a point some 400 miles due north of Edmonton splendid crops 

 of wheat, barley, oats, peas, etc., have been regularly raised for 

 more than twenty years, the product for 1906 being 25,000 bushels. 

 The production of grain in these sparsely settled regions has re- 

 sulted in the establishment of local grist mills of considerable 



