17 



that opportunity to jju from tho East*.Tn coast 

 right alonj^ to the West, coming back by a 

 different route, so that he spoke from fii-st hand 

 knowledge. When he left England he travelled 

 from Liverpool to Canada, via Quebec, which 

 was three hundi-ed and forty miles shoi'ter 

 than from Liverpool to New York. There was 

 another advantage in travelling by what they 

 called the All Red route, because it was from 

 English shores, to the shores of a part of our 

 dominions. It had also the further advantage, 

 that they might have a chance of seeing white 

 poi*poises wliich were only to be found in the river 

 of St. Lawrence. He had the good fortune to see 

 those white porpoises, and also a black and 

 white whale — a somewhat peculiar speci- 

 men. They were sometimes in the habit of 

 thinking of Canada as being in the very far 

 North, and they should correct their ideas in 

 regard to that. Labrador was in the same degree 

 of latitude as England ; the boundary line of 

 Canada and the United States as Paris ; Quebec 

 as Berne, Switzerland ; Toronto as the Riviera, 

 and New York as tho south of Rome. The bulk 

 of the population in Canada lived in the same 

 southerly degree as the most southerly point of 

 England. The Wintei-s in Canada were much 

 colder and the Summers much hotter than in the 

 British Isles, and reasons for this were, 

 viz., (1) the high rocky westera mountains 

 stopped the winds from the Pacific. (2) for the 

 low lands in the centre there was no protection 

 from the cold polar winds in Winter, or the 

 hot southern winds in Summer. Mr. Galpin, 

 turning for a moment to the geological 

 side of his subject, dissipated the idea of 

 Canada's being a new country, and remarked 

 that as one sailed up the St. Lawi-ence River 

 one saw on the route rocks that were known as the 

 Laurentian, and said that at Montreal he saw 

 the Eozoon Canadense, found in the Laurentian 

 rocks, the earliest known form of life. The 

 lecturer remarked on the cold electrical 

 atmosphere experienced in Winter, and related 

 how under certain conditions a human being 

 could light the gas with the aid of a poker, 

 and how electricity could be generated by the 

 shuffling of feet ; and he went on to give a graphic 

 description of the magnificent spectacle presented 

 by the ice palaces at the Winter carnival at 

 Montreal. At Spring-time, he said, one was struck 

 by the fact that there was so very much less of 

 life in the woods than in England. They were 

 very sombre. Thei-e was not thnt ])usy life of 

 birds and so on ; and there was not the variety of 

 undergrowth or " copses " that one got in this 

 countiy. Then again one was struck by the apparent 

 great waste of timber. He was, of course, 

 speaking of twenty-five years ago ; but the owners 

 at that time only allowed certain trees to be cut 

 douTi so that there should always be a succession. 

 In the Summer the weather was vQry hot and semi- 

 tropical, and the humming birds and mosquitoes 

 made their appearance ; and in tho autumn there 

 were very beautiful autumn tints Mr. Galpin 

 mentioned that he had brought home a collection 

 of Canadian butterflies, and said that whilst some 

 of the species closely resembled some of those in 



England, yet they were not really quite the same. 

 Although the written history of America went 

 back only a few centuries, yet, as it was expressed 

 to them by the monimients «f a people who had 

 long since disappeared, it carried one back many 

 thousands of years. People after people had 

 lived there and left no trace other than those 

 monuments. Over all the district from the coast 

 of the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi, through 

 the vallej' to Lake Superior they found 

 those mounds and earth works. These earth 

 works, and sometimes pits cut into the 

 solid rock, rubbish heaps, tools, stone im- 

 plements, etc., they found scattered about 

 the central part of North Aiuerica, It 

 might be thought that these earth-works would 

 have been chiefly upon tiie higher part of the land ; 

 but they wei-e to be found in the valleys and the 

 lowlands and genei-aUy near nvers — and very 

 seldom in hiUy, broken country. The fact that 

 they were placed near rivers was probably that 

 these were the means of communication. These 

 earthworks might be divided into enclosures and 

 mounds. There were two kinds of euclosiu-es. 

 First of all, there were fortifications, the most 

 celebrated of which was " Fort Ancient," in Ohio, 

 33 miles N.E. of Cincinnati, which had four or five 

 miles of embankments (which averaged from nine 

 to ten feet high) ; and, secondly, there were the 

 sacred enclosures, which usiially contained as part 

 of their design large circles, nearly all from 250 

 feet to 300 feet in diameter. Tlie walls ranged 

 from three to seven feet high, but they were 

 sometimes as high as 30 feet ; and what was so 

 interesting was the regularity with which the 

 enclosures were made. The}- got smaller circles, 

 parallel lines, complete squaies, octagons, and 

 they sometimes got an ellipse and figiu*es of that 

 kind. Of mounds there were three kinds, viz. : 

 (1) watch towers or defence beacons ; (2) burial 

 places (jiist as in England) ; and (3) symbolical 

 mounds, comprising representations of bcfists, 

 birds, reptiles, men, and other emblems. Mr. 

 Ga]pin exhibited a representation of the "Great 

 Serpent " Mound in Ohio, which is situated at the 

 end of a spur of land on the top of a hill about 

 150 feet above Bush Creek. The mound was at 

 the top, about 150 feet «-ide and 1,000 feet long, 

 and represented a serpent resting its head, its 

 body winding back in gi-aceful undulations with 

 a triple coil at the tail. Another representa- 

 tion shown was that of the " Big Elephant '* 

 Mound in the south-west of Wisconsin, only 

 about 8ft. above high water. Then there was 

 also the symbols of the mastodon and mammoth. 

 He remarked that there were no bones of anj- of 

 the elephant family to be found in the Mississippi 

 valley, although those of the mastodon, mammoth. 

 etc., were to be foimd in plenty in the gravel and 

 mud. These animals, he said, must have ceased 

 to exist in the United States long before the 

 Mound builders began to flourish — or else they 

 must give these men an antiquity wnich other 

 evidence did not justify. Mr. Galpin next pro- 

 ceeded to deal with the early inhabitants of 

 North America, and he put them in chronological 

 order as foUow : — (1) Toltecs and Alleghans, (2) 

 Esquimaux, (3) Chippewas, (4) Algonquins. He ex- 



