492 Our North Land. 



produces may be mentioned white, red, and pitch pine, black and 

 white spruce, balsam, larch, white cedar, and white birch. The 

 numerous rivers converging towards the head of James' Bay offer 

 facilities for ' driving ' timber to points at which it may be shipped 

 by sea-going vessels. 



" Minerals may, however, become in the future the greatest of 

 the resources of Hudson's Bay. Little direct search has as yet been 

 made for the valuable minerals of these regions. I have, however, 

 found a large deposit of rich ironstone on the Mattagami River, 

 inexhaustible supplies of good manganiferous iron ore on the islands 

 near the eastmain coast, and promising quantities of galena around 

 Richmond Gulf and also near Little Whale River, where a small 

 amount had previously been known to exist. I have likewise noted 

 traces of gold, silver, molybdenum, and copper. Lignite is met with 

 on the Missinabe, gypsum on the Moose, and petroleum-bearing 

 limestone on the Abittibi River. Small quantities of anthracite and 

 various ornamental stones and rare minerals, have been met with in 

 the course of my explorations. Soapstone is abundant not far from 

 Mosquito Bay, on the east side, and iron pyrites between Churchill 

 and Marble Island, on the west. Good building stones, clays, and 

 limestones exist on both sides of the Bay. A cargo of mica is said 

 to have been taken from Chesterfield Inlet to New York, and 

 valuable deposits of plumbago are reported to occur on the north 

 side of Hudson's Strait. Some capitalists have applied to the 

 Canadian Government for mining rights in the latter region. 



" Situated in the heart of North America, and possessing a sea- 

 port in the very centre of the continent, one thousand five hundred 

 miles nearer than Quebec to the fertile lands of the North-West 

 Territories, Hudson's Bay now begins to possess a new interest, not 

 only to the Canadians, but also to the people of Great Britain, from 

 the fact that the future highway between the great North-West of 

 the Dominion and Europe may pass through it. The possibility o 

 this route being adopted for trade is not a new idea, as it has 

 frequently been suggested by far-seeing men in the past years, and 

 occasionally referred to in the newspapers. In 1848 the then Lieu- 

 tenant M. H. Synge, in his work on Canada, wrote : ' A ship 



