798 eepokt — 1884. 



Pacific Railway, of which many of my hearers will soon have personal knowledge, 

 or of the proposed railway from Winnipeg to Hudson's Bay ; there are numerous 

 other undertakings which serve in an equal degree to mark this nineteenth century 

 as the mother of new forces and new possibilities. The Mexican Central Railway 

 open some time since from El Paso on the River Grande, to Jimenez, has been 

 opened to Mexico itself, and will soon reach Tehuantepec, which will thus be placed 

 in direct railway communication with New Orleans, while the Sonoran branch will 

 connect the United States with Guaymas on the Gulf of California. It requires a 

 moment's recollection of the events we have seen in our own day to appreciate 

 the vastness of these changes. 



In South America we have the railway of Dorn Pedro II. creeping on towards 

 Paraguay and the Argentine Republic. It has reached Sorocaba, while branches 

 from S. Paolo to the north-west approach great tracts on the Parana and Pazama- 

 panama, which are marked on the latest Brazilian maps as 'unknown Indian 

 territories,' perhaps 100,000 square miles in extent, cut by the tropic, but con- 

 tributing almost nothing as yet to commerce. 



Turning to Africa, the French have a short railway in operation on the 

 Senegal, from Dakar to S. Louis, and a section of a line to Medina opened. French 

 engineers also are engaged on a railway from Enzeti to Teheran, so that before 

 long the capital of Persia will be reached from London in little more than a week. 



Looking to the far East, Russia has long since made the shores of the Caspian 

 nearly as accessible as Lake Superior, by her railway from Batoum, by way of 

 Tiflis to Baku, which will also be reached by the lines from Moscow before long. 

 This is but the first section of a line of far more ambitious aims. Starting again 

 from Mikhailovsk, the embouchure of the ancient Oxus, the Trans-Caspian branch 

 has been extended to Bami, and the line has been surveyed to Herat. The political 

 forces in the field may be safely trusted to bring the British Indian lines, at present 

 laid out to Quetta (600 miles from Herat) into a more or less direct communication 

 with the same terminus. These are forces which we cannot ignore, but all we have 

 to do with them here is to recognise, behind their smoke and din, the steady 

 advance of our race in its primeval mission to replenish the earth and subdue it. 

 The next step on the British side is an extension of the railway from Quetta to 

 Candahar, a work which was commenced by a former administration but discon- 

 tinued. Its completion can bring nothing but benefit to the Ameer and his people. 



18. The science of geography reaches perhaps its highest point of public utility 

 when it determines on a sure basis the international disputes ever arising on ques- 

 tions of boundary. Sacred as our neighbour's landmarks are, or ought to be, to 

 us, they are in many cases so ill or incorrectly defined as to give free scope to the 

 passion of aggrandisement. In such a state is the frontier of Afghanistan, 

 between the rivers Tejend and Amu Darya. In such a state, from the Treaty of 

 Ghent to the Treaty of Washington, were the frontiers of this Dominion and are 

 still those of Ontario and Manitoba. In such a state are the frontiers of British 

 Guiana, which have been in dispute for many years with the Republic of Venezuela 

 on the one side, and the Empire of Brazil on the other, both basing their claims on 

 vague rights of the old Spanish crown. To some extent the question as to the 

 original boundaries of the possessions claimed by Portugal in West Africa, includ- 

 ing the mouth of the Congo, belongs to the same category. The ambiguity arises 

 more frequently from defective maps and the consequent imperfect geographical 

 knowledge of the statesmen negotiating treaties, than from any other cause, and 

 all that I dwell upon here is the proof so often afforded that liberal, even large 

 expenditure, in the encouragement of scientific exploration, especially of frontier 

 lands, would often prove to be true public economy in the end. 



19. I have now touched lightly upon all the points which appear to me to be 

 most noticeable in the recent progress of geographical science ; but before I resume 

 my seat I cannot deny myself the pleasure of alluding to that important measure of 

 social reform, so simple in its application, so scientific in its basis, for which you 

 are indebted to the perseverance and enthusiasm of my friend Mr. Sandford 

 Fleming, C.E. I mean, of course, the agreement to refer local time on this 

 continent to a succession of first meridians, one hour apart. There are many 

 red-letter days in the almanac of less importance than that memorable November 



