436 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—G. 
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and the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, a total transcontinental distance of about 
three thousand five hundred miles. Economically, however, the Dominion presents a 
much larger figure. Its developable area, now being disclosed as containing the most 
valuable of natural resources and largely capable of sustaining population, may be 
viewed as nearly three times this size. In other words, the belt can, and undoubtedly 
will in time, be expanded to a region of from eight hundred to a thousand miles wide. 
It is but fifty years ago that the great transcontinental railway, the Canadian 
Pacific, was undertaken asa private enterprise, but it rapidly became the link to bind 
the new Western provinces to the Eastern. It, with the Intercolonial Railway built 
shortly before and serving the Maritime Provinces, made practical the political 
confederation of the provinces, which, in 1867, created the Dominion of Canada. 
If the movement in the past decades was westward, Canada’s development to-day 
is, by contrast, definitely moving northward. The New North of Canada is now 
beginning to be realized, and there is a distinct northward trend of population and 
development. 
Engineering, wherever carried on, demands design, construction, and operation 
of engineering works in conformity with the characteristics of the country. These 
governing characteristics are both physical and human ; they depend upon geography, 
climate, and natural resources, and, above all, the habits and customs of the people in 
their tendencies and requirements of life and business. 
Canadian conditions, demanding initiative and resourcefulness, have stimulated 
this independence and have developed the types of practice in the country. Canadian 
engineering is consequently recognised as having had great influence upon different 
phases of the country’s activities and business. It has been a valuable factor alike 
upon the economic, the social, and the political life of the nation, for no young country 
can grow so rapidly without demanding and receiving the highest form of scientific 
direction in its development. This is recognised by the attention paid in Canada to 
high standards of education to provide the human resources with which to develop 
the material resources. 
This influence on the country’s development through the last thirty or forty 
years can be indicated by certain prominent fields in which special engineering progress 
has been made, and in which Canada has attracted attention from other nations. 
In all of these, engineers’ contributions have been notable. 
Agriculture is, and will continue to be, Canada’s premier industry. In recent — 
years its rapid mechanisation has quite changed its character, and the engineer has — 
taken a more prominent part in farm equipment, in storage and elevators, in the 
milling of foodstuffs, and in transportation by rail and water. 
The development of Canada’s forest resources has brought about the ‘miracle of — 
paper,’ whereby the paper industry has taken second place in herindustries. Canadian 
paper is shipped to the remotest parts of the Empire. Engineers have largely con- 
tributed to this. 2 
Mining, also, is now attracting attention, especially as it is an industry less than 
forty years old. This is the more remarkable because Canada now stands first in the 
production of nickel, second in gold, and fourth in copper. 
It is, however, in water-power that Canada is attracting the greatest attention. 
To it can be traced not only marked industrial and economic development, but in a 
large measure social and economic advancement as well, for, with cheap electric power 
available to every home in the city or on the farm, social life promptly reacts for its 
betterment. The total water-power installed in Canada to-day is at a rate of over 
six-tenths of a horse power per inhabitant. Notable in existing developments is the 
very successful publicly-owned Ontario system, nearly one-half of its capacity being 
in one Niagara plant of 550,000 h.p., the largest yet constructed. Transmission lines 
in this system are in operation in lengths upwards of 220 miles, carrying power at 
voltages as high as 200,000 volts to most of the industries of the province, situated 
in nearly 700 municipalities and rural districts. Still more notable, however, will 
be the forthcoming power developments on the St. Lawrence River. Canada’s interest 
in this river assures new power, when developed, of upwards of three and a half million 
horse power. This project is now engaging the attention of the Government for both 
power and deep navigation from the Lakes to the sea. ; 
It is difficult to select a measure for the future. It would be easier if the extent 
of the country’s resources were known, but they are not known. For instance, the 
mineral possibilities can, as yet, only be guessed at, as the contents of the pre-Cambrian 
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