TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 651 



the two, it is now navigated from the Grand Rapids, near Lake Winnipeg, to the 

 base of the Rocky Mountains. A steamer also plies regularly on Lake Winnipeg, 

 and has ascertained many interesting particulars, of which we have hitherto been 

 ionorant. Its greatest depth does not apparently exceed 100 feet. Its discharge 

 has at last been followed by Dr. Robert Bell, down the Nelson river, to the sea. 

 That gentleman reports the impediments to navigation to be insuperable, and a 

 company has been very recently formed to make a railway from the lowest navi- 

 gable point to the mouth of the Churchill river. 



Our hopes of further light upon the history of the ill-fated Franklin 

 expedition, based on information gi\en by a Netchelli Esquimaux, to the 

 American Captain Potter in 1872, have been again disappointed. An American 

 search expedition lauded at Depot Island (lat. 04°), in the neighbourhood of which 

 traces were reported, in August 1878, wintered there, and examined the country, 

 as yet with no result, except a correction of the charts. 



Hudson's Bay itself cannot fail at no distant day to challenge more attention. 

 Dr. Bell reports that the land is rising at the rate of 5 to 10 feet in a century, that 

 is, possibly, an inch a year. Not, however, on this account will the hydrographer 

 notice it ; but because the natural seaports of that vast interior now thrown open 

 to settlement, Keewatin, Manitoba, and other provinces unborn, must be sought 

 there. York Factory, which is nearer liverpool than New York, has been 

 happily called bv Prof. H. Y. Hind, the Archangel of the West. The mouth of 

 the Churchill, however, although somewhat fui-ther north, offers far superior 

 natural advantages, and may more fitly challenge the title. It will undoubtedly be 

 the future shipping port for the agricultural products of the vast north-west 

 territory, and the route by which emigrants will enter the country. 



Before leaving this quarter I must allude to the praiseworthy efforts of some of 

 the Western States, especially Nebraska and Minnesota, to encourage the planting 

 on the great plains by premiums, in which they have been followed by our own 

 Province of Manitoba. Many years must elapse before the full climatic effects 

 can be realized, but in time they cannot be doubtful, and with the impending 

 disappearance of the buffalo will disappear much of that arid treeless region, 

 embracing nearly 600,000 square miles, which he now wanders over, and assists to 

 keep bare" by so doing. On the other hand, the short-sighted and destructive habit 

 of burning off the prairie grasses to promote a young growth, increases with settle- 

 ment, and is chargeable with incredible mischief. These tires have the curious 

 effect, when they extend into wooded regions, of helping to exterminate the more 

 slow-growing and valuable descriptions of timber, and favouring the prevalence of 

 the more worthless quick-growing kinds. But the Indians are even more charge- 

 able with them than the whites, and the traveller encounters few more melancholy 

 sights than a forest of charred and lifeless trunks extending over an area as large 

 as a county, the fruit perhaps of a signal from one band to another. 



A discourse on American geography would be incomplete without reference to 

 that great design of piercing the Isthmus of Panama, with which Count Ferdinand 

 de Lesseps has connected his name. Out of the conflict of about ten competing 

 lines, the oldest and the youngest alone survive. The route by Lake Nicaragua 

 appeared possible even to Cortez. It was accurately surveyed nearly seventy years 

 ago, and the estimates, although they have grown alarmingly, are still within 

 practicable limits. It has the preference of the highest authorities in the United 

 States. Its total length would be 180 miles, including 56 miles of lake navigation, 

 with a summit level, to be attained by lockage, of 107'0 feet. 



The Panama route would shorten the canal to one-fourth of this length, and it is 

 a cardinal point with its author to dispense altoerether with locks. As we expect 

 to be favoured by the presence of Lieut. Bonaparte Wyse — M. de Lesseps' coadjutor 

 — I need say no 'more, except that the enthusiastic reception given to M. de Lesseps 

 here in Swansea, not many weeks ago, is sure evidence that this great industrial 

 centre takes a keen interest in his project from a commercial point of view ; and we 

 may safely lea%e capitalists, engineers, and diplomatists to tight out their battle, 

 only concerned that by one route, if not by both, the world may reap in our day 



