HALIFAX 



2G68 



HALL 



ment was the added cost of the long railway 

 haul from the interior of Canada, but it is 

 believed that the terminal costs can be kept 

 low enough to counterbalance this charge and 

 still yield a proper return in proportion to the 

 capital expenditure. 



For many years the railway terminal piers 

 were located on the north water front, but 

 under the new plans, announced in 1912, these 

 are on the south water front. In 1914 con- 

 struction work was begun on this task, which 

 involved the relocation of the railway lines 

 within the city limits and the construction of 

 a new depot and new docks. The landing 

 quay will be 2,000 feet long, and each of the 

 six piers will be 1,250 feet long by 360 feet 

 wide, with deep basins 275 feet wide. Halifax 

 will have what no great port in the United 

 States has direct, main-line railway connec- 

 tions both for freight and .passengers to the 

 very edge of the wharves. Steamers will dock ' 

 at one end of the terminals and transconti- 

 nental trains will start at the other. When 

 these improvements are completed it will be 

 possible to journey without a break from the 

 Victoria Docks in London, via Halifax and 

 Vancouver, or Prince Rupert, to Hongkong. 



Features of the City. Halifax, besides its 

 large trade in apples, fish, lumber and other 

 products of Nova Scotia, is impoitant as a 

 manufacturing center. Its chief industrial 

 establishments are iron foundries, machine 

 shops, a cotton mill, the largest sugar refinery 

 in Canada, and boot and shoe factories. Con- 

 spicuous among the public buildings are the 

 provincial Parliament building, government 

 house, post office, custom house and city hall. 

 Also noteworthy are the military barracks 

 overlooking the harbor, Victoria General Hos- 

 pital, Nova Scotia Technical College, Convent 

 of the Sacred Heart and the splendid new 

 buildings of Dalhousie University (which see). 

 Among the educational institutions are Saint 

 Mary's College, the Halifax Ladies' College 

 ;ind Conservatory of Music, schools for the 

 blind and deaf, Presbyterian and Catholic 

 theological schools and the Royal Naval Col- 

 lege of Canada. 



Halifax is the seat of the Anglican archbishop 

 of Nova Scotia and the Roman Catholic arch- 

 bishop of Halifax, and the cathedrals of these 

 two are imposing structures. The new civic 

 park on the northwest arm, with its massive me- 

 morial tower commemorates the origin here, in 

 1758, of the British colonial system of repre- 

 sentative government. 



History. Halifax was founded by, the Brit- 

 ish in 1749 as a rival to the French fortress of 

 Louisburg (which see). It was named for 

 George Montagu, Earl of Halifax (1716-1771), 

 who was at that time president of the British 

 Board of Trade. Halifax was an uncle. to Lord 

 North, who played so important a part in the 

 affairs of England a few years later. The an- 

 cient citadel of the fortress rerriains, but there 

 is also a ring of a dozen forts to guard the city. 

 In 1750 Halifax supplanted Annapolis as the 

 capital of the colony. During the Revolution- 

 ary War it was an important supply base for 

 the British, in the War of 1812 it was an out- 

 fitting point for privateers, and during the 

 American War of Secession it was frequented 

 by Confederate blockade-runners. It was gar- 

 risoned by British troops until 1906, when the 

 responsibility for defense was assumed by the 

 Canadian government. 



Halifax has been preeminently a banking 

 center. It is the home of two of the largest 

 chartered banks of the Dominion, and is the 

 wealthiest per capita Canadian city. It is 

 known far and wide as the "Atlantic Gateway" 

 of Canada. It is the nearest to Great Britain 

 of any city on the American continent, being 

 but 2,187 miles from Cape Clear. On December 

 6, 1917, the Belgian relief ship Imo and the 

 French munition ship Mont Blanc collided in 

 Halifax harbor. A fire resulted on the Mont 

 Blanc which caused the explosion of 3,000 tons 

 of munitions, resulting in the destruction of a 

 large portion of the city. There were 1,226 

 people killed, and 4,000 were injured. Most of 

 the killed were buried beneath wrecked build- 

 ings. Arrest of alien enemies failed to reveal 

 evidences of a plot. A.H.M. 



HALL, ASAPH (1829-1907), an American 

 astronomer who discovered two moons of the 

 planet Mars. He was born in Goshen, Conn., 

 became a carpenter, but entered Central Col- 

 lege in McGranville, N. Y., in 1854, where he 

 remained for over a year and then entered the 

 University of Michigan. In 1863 he was made 

 professor of mathematics in the naval observa- 

 tory at Washington, but in 1891 left the gov- 

 ernment service with the rank of captain. He 

 received appointment as professor of astronomy 

 at Harvard in 1895, where he remained six 

 years. The United States government sent him 

 on several astronomical expeditions, among 

 which were those to Bering Strait, in 1869, Vla- 

 divostok, Siberia, in 1874, and to Colorado in 

 1878, to observe the transit of Venus. The 

 greatest of his discoveries was the two moons of 



