ADMINISTRATION 177 



the world the Royal Navy of the mother- 

 land. 



This is only a glance at the conditions of 

 the present ; while each Imperial and Canadian 

 service, department, branch, and sub-division 

 has a long, romantic, and most important 

 history of its own. The lighthouse service 

 alone could supply hero-tales enough to fill 

 a book. The weather service is full of absorb- 

 ing interest. And, what with wireless tele- 

 graphy, submarine bells, direction indicators, 

 microthermometers as detectors of ice, and 

 many other new appliances, the whole practice 

 of navigation is becoming an equally interest- 

 ing subject for a book filled with the ' fairy 

 tales of science.' Even hydrography that is, 

 the surveying and mapping (or ' charting ') 

 of the water has an appealing interest, to 

 say nothing of its long and varied history. 

 Jacques Cartier, though he made no charts, 

 may be truly called the first Canadian hydro- 

 grapher; for his sailing directions are admir- 

 ably clear and correct. In the next century 

 we find Champlain noting the peculiarities 

 of the Laurentian waters to good effect ; while 

 in the next again, the eighteenth, we come 

 upon the famous Captain Cook, one of the 

 greatest hydrographers of all time. Cook was 



A. A. M 



