51 



probabilities are tliat Canada's most valuable assets lie in tlie great forest, 

 and the unknown mineral wealth of the Laurentian peneplain. 



Standing upon the broad principle postulated by Geddes, that "geogra- 

 phy in the long run disposes," geographers should not hesitate to express 

 the general trend of geographic influences. While taking into account the 

 contravention and annulment of these influences by historical, racial, so- 

 cial, political and even personal forces, they are disposed to regard appar- 

 ent violations of geographic laws as local and temporary, or as manifesta- 

 tions of some higher law. Jefferson was a geographer as well as a states- 

 man when he prophesied that the Mississippi basin "will ere long yield 

 more than half of our whole produce and contain more than half of our 

 inhabitants," and declared that any foreign possessor of the mouth of the 

 Mississippi is "our natural and habitual enemy." Lincoln and the loyal 

 people of the north were geographers when they maintained that a separa- 

 tion of the northern and southern States would be a calamity to both. 



The Canadian olection is over, and we know what our next door neigh- 

 bor thinks of us. Nevertheless I venture to predict that the two nations 

 will ultimately become one. Annexation of the United States to Canada 

 might be preferable to the inverse process ; but geographic influences of 

 maximum intensity crowd the two peoples together with the persistent 

 pressure of gravitation. "No sane man," says Prof. Grant of Kingston 

 University, "would, if asked to divide North America into three nations, 

 draw the present boundary line between Canada and the United States." 



The habitable area of Canada consists of a strip 4,000 miles long and 

 200 to 400 miles wide, almost cut into three fragments by the northward 

 projections of Maine and Lake Superior. The provinces are held together 

 like beads on a string by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Is it not probable 

 that the enormous mass of wealth and kindred population on one side of 

 the most unscientific boundary in the world will in time attract and dom- 

 inate the economics and politics of our northern neighbors, and Canada be 

 peacefully absorbed by economic rather than by diplomatic or military 

 conquest V 



The scientific frontier along which a geographer would divide the con- 

 tinent is, of course, the crest of the Rocky Mountains. That is the natural 

 line of cleavage, but the Pacific States of America, as a world power, 

 would incur the danger as well as enjoy the strength of their position. If 

 there are ever as many people and as much wealth between Los Angeles 



