8 REPORT OF THE No. 3 



fully satisfy the complete title and functioning of the administrative system since 

 it overlooked the forests. Consequently the following year 1906 by a further 

 statutory amendment the title was changed to Department of Lands, Forests 

 and Mines. 



The tapping of the northern part of the Province by the Temiskaming and 

 Northern Ontario Railway, the first sections of which were completed in 1903, 

 and later on the building of the Canadian Northern, Transcontinental and Grand 

 Trunk Pacific Railways opened up the treasures of the new sections traversed, 

 and resulted in a rush of settlement and industrial activity. The world famous 

 Cobalt area and the ever continuous impetus its discovery gave to prospecting 

 in the great mineralized zones and to the establishment of substantial businesses 

 so increased the work and enlarged the importance of the mineral wealth of 

 Ontario that a separate and distinct Department of Mines was created in 1920, 

 and the marked development since then has amply justified the legislation. 



New avenues of trade and commerce invited the settler, a vital link in the 

 real chain of community life, and demands for road building and general assistance 

 were adequately provided for by the passing in 1912 of The Northern Develop- 

 ment Act under which a special appropriation by the Legislature has been annually 

 voted. The great expansion of Northern Ontario, however, involving increasing 

 expenditures under this head, made it necessary to constitute an organization 

 apart from Lands and Forests to exclusively operate in this field. Hence the 

 Northern Development Department was constituted in 1925 and is presided 

 over by the Minister of Lands and Forests. 



The need of applying technical and the most modern method to the care 

 of our forests and of providing professional investigations for the requirements 

 of reforestation has been met by the appointment a few years ago of a Deputy 

 Head for this particular branch, and under his supervision the work is satis- 

 factorily proceeding. 



Furthermore the pushing back of the frontier with the increased aggressive 

 expansion in commerce and industry, the success of which is so largely dependent 

 upon the forests for raw material, called for an adequate forest fire protection 

 system to patrol the timber areas otherwise inaccessible. Thus in 1925 the 

 Government established its own aerial fire patrol organization, now acknowledged 

 the finest of its kind in the world. A fleet of twenty-five planes owned, operated 

 and controlled by the Department of Lands and Forests has rendered excellent 

 service and made an enviable record in the field of practical and efficient 

 aeronautics. This air service has not been entirely restricted to detection and 

 suppression in connection with forest fires, but has been utilized on divers 

 occasions to enforce law and order, to go on errands of mercy and to fulfil other 

 important roles in certain departments of the Provincial Government and at 

 times to render service to the Federal Government. 



Hand in hand with and even in advance of settlement and substantial 

 progress in different fields must go the technical surveyor, the engineer, the 

 professional line blazer. In the earliest history of the country when extensive 

 surveys were essential as precursors of pioneer movements and intimate details 

 of the topography and possibilities of the land and waterways were required, 

 prior even to the appointment of the first Commissioner of Crown Lands, over 

 one hundred years ago, the work was under the Surveyor-General whose title 

 after some decades was absorbed, and an officer known as Director of Surveys 

 was charged with the duties of supervising all surveys. As the Province has so 

 rapidly advanced in its development of water power, an invaluable heritage, 

 and the need of engineering skill is recognized, it was deemed expedient that 



