XI 



magnificent institutions. My numerous reading and thinking 

 friends have, with a marvellous patience, endured these many years 

 my demands for informations, and indeed their sympathy has been 

 my greatest encouragement. 



I wish also to express my thanks to the publishers, who have 

 so generously undertaken the responsibility of bringing before the 

 public this, my initial volume ; thereby preserving those traditions 

 which make our great Dominion proud to own as its national 

 totem, "the beaver." 



Horace T. Martin. 



Montreal, February, i8g2. 



