286 



ECUADOR 



The Galops Rapids, about seven miles below 

 Prescott, the most shallow of the three passed 

 by the Galops Canal, are being improved by 

 certain works of sub-marine blasting and 

 dredging, begun in 1880. These consist of the 

 excavation of a straight channel through the 

 rapids, 3,300 feet long, 200 feet wide, and of 

 such depth as to afford safe passage at low 

 water to vessels of fourteen feet draught. This 

 implies affording a depth of seventeen feet of 

 water. The whole of the work of drilling 

 and blasting is completed, but the broken rock 

 has to be removed by the dredging-machine, 

 and this work is in progress. It is one of con- 

 siderable difficulty, owing to the rapidity of 

 the current and the necessity of avoiding inter- 

 ruption to navigation. Above the Galops Rap- 

 ids there is unobstructed navigation to the 

 foot of the Welland Canal at the head of Lake 

 Ontario. Much anxiety has been expressed at 

 the various ports on Lake Ontario, over the 

 fact that such an increased volume of water 

 would pass over the Galops Rapids, owing to 

 the heavy blasting at that point, and also 

 through the enlarged St. Lawrence canals. 

 Should the quantity of water be largely in- 

 creased, it is thought that the depth in the 

 several ports of Lake Ontario may be consid- 

 erably reduced, to the great injury of the re- 

 spective cities belonging to such ports. As a 

 part of the scheme for enlarging the water- 

 ways through Canada, the great work of deep- 

 ening the channel of the St. Lawrence river, 



from Montreal to Quebec, was completed in 

 1888. This work was first agitated over sixty 

 years ago, and was begun in 1844; and the 

 result is that where there was formerly only 

 eleven feet of water there is now twenty-seven 

 and a half feet, and large ocean steamers can 

 enter the docks at Montreal, six hundred miles 

 from the mouth of the St. Lawrence. There 

 are now twenty- two lines of ocean steamers 

 that sail to and from Montreal. Engineers say 

 that the commerce of a port increases accord- 

 ing to the cube of the increase in the depth of 

 the channel, and statistics show that this law 

 of increase has been fulfilled at Montreal as the 

 channel has been gradually deepened. Some 

 idea of the magnitude of the work which has 

 been done can be gained from the fact that in 

 Lake St. Peter, eight million cubic yards of 

 clay were removed, an amount of excavating 

 equal to what was done in building eight hun- 

 dred miles of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. 

 In some places solid rock has been " scooped 

 out 1J to a depth of several feet, and altogether 

 it was quite fitting that the engineers in charge, 

 and the Montreal, Provincial, and Dominion 

 governments should rejoice together over what 

 has been accomplished. Montreal now has a 

 population of 250,000, and with her deep-water 

 outlet on the one side, and the Canadian Pa- 

 cific Railroad on the other, she looks hopefully 

 to the future, and pictures for herself a day 

 when she shall have many times her present 

 population and commerce. 



E 



ECUADOR, an independent republic in South 

 America, covering an area on the mainland of 

 643,295 square kilometres, while the Galapagos 

 Islands measure 7,643 square kilometres. Ac- 

 cording to the census taken in 1885, the popu- 

 lation was distributed as follows: 



The population given in detail above does not 

 include the wild Indians of the eastern provinces 

 and eastern slopes of the Andes, supposed to 

 number in the aggregate some 600,000 souls. 



Government. The President is Dr. Antonio 

 Flores, whose term of office will expire on 

 June 30, 1892. His Cabinet was composed as 

 follows: Interior and Foreign Affairs, Gen. 

 Don Francisco J. Salazar ; Public Instruction, 

 "Worship, and Charity, Don Elias Laso ; Fi- 

 nance, Don Jose Toribio Noboa ; War and 

 Navy, Gen. Saenz. The Consul of Ecuador at 

 Washington is the Marquis de Chambrun ; the 

 Consul- General at New York, Don Domingo 

 L. Ruiz; and the Consul at Philadelphia, Ed- 

 ward Shippen. The American Consul-General 

 at Guayaquil is Owen McGarr. 



Finances. According to the statement made 

 by the Minister of Finance, the indebtedness 

 was $13,196,095 capital and $1,152,487 inter- 

 est due thereon on June 10, 1887, constituting 

 an aggregate debt of $14,348,582. This includes 

 the sterling debt, the principal of which is 

 1,824,000, and the accumulated unpaid inter- 

 est was 373,920 on June 10, 1888, thus in- 

 creasing the amount due in Europe to 2,197,- 

 920. This sterling debt had its origin at the 

 time Colombia was dissolved into three inde- 

 pendent states, viz., New Granada (now called 

 Colombia), Venezuela, and Ecuador, in 1830, 

 and represents the portion of the old Colom- 



