FOURTH EXPLORATION, 1880 163 



the discussions in the House and, at one of these, when Sir John 

 brought in the bill to build the road from Ocean to Ocean, Mr. 

 Mackenzie, who, I think, opened the debate in opposition to Sir 

 John, stated that the country was of very little value and held to 

 the opinions of Palliser and others who deprecated the whole 

 country. In his desk at this time, he had my report written in 

 1877 for himself and, instead of using it, he ignored it altogether 

 and quoted Bishop Tach6 and Palliser. I became so excited that 

 I called out that he had my report in his desk and why not read 

 it also. In a minute, I felt a hand on my shoulder and, on looking 

 up, I saw one of the ushers, who invited me to keep still or else 

 leave the building. Either on this occasion or another one, Mr. 

 Blake, who, apparently, was leading the House, said that the 

 railway, when built, would not earn enough to pay for the grease 

 for its wheels. His idea of building the road was to build it as 

 fast as the settlers went in. He was utterly opposed to British 

 Columbia and objected strongly to the road being built west of 

 the mountains. He brought up the question of the absence of 

 maps of British Columbia and he asked Sir John to have one made 

 that would give them some idea of the country. I was asked to 

 see that a map was prepared, and did so. All the arable land 

 that I knew of was to be left in white and all the rest was to be 

 colored brown. To my horror, when it was produced, it was 

 almost all brown. Mr. Blake, when he received the map, looked 

 over it and very calmly held it up and shook it at De Cosmos, 

 who was then Member for Victoria, and said to him, "Macoun, 

 who is your champion, has done you brown." Before this, I had 

 stated in conversation with Mr. Blake, that there was very little 

 agricultural land in British Columbia but it contained immense 

 forests of the finest of timbers, unknown quantities of minerals 

 and more edible fishes than any other part of the Dominion. Sir 

 Charles Tupper, as Minister of Railways, formally acknowledged 

 his belief in my statements and, in his great speech on the Pacific 

 Railway, in the spring of 1880, accepted my figures as the basis 

 of his calculations, but not before he had satisfied himself that my 

 statements were not the guesses of an ill-informed enthusiast. A 

 number of gentlemen had taken up the railway route by Pine 



