OF WESTERN CANADA. 39 



2,500 pages. The pablislier humorously styles it, on the otiter cover, 

 in gold letters, a " Pocket Gazetteer of Canada." 



In 1873, appeared Lovell's Gazetteer of British North America, 

 containing the latest and most authentic descriptions of 6,000 cities, 

 towns, and villages; 1,500 lakes and rivers, with tables of routes. 

 Edited by P. A. Crossby. All this being accomplished in a small 

 8vo. volume of less than 600 pages, the space allotted to each locality 

 is small, and the information very much condensed. It is, neverthe- 

 less, minute and satisfactory. The statistics have been gathered 

 with great care. 



In the introduction the proposed Canadian Pacific Railway is thus 

 referred to : " Heretofore Canada has been to the traveller little 

 better than a cul de sac, as he could only journey as far as the 

 extremity of Lake Superior ; but when the entire Dominion can be 

 traversed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, he will be enabled with 

 ease to take a rapid survey of these wide spreading dominions 

 belonging to the British Crown, and measure their political and 

 commercial importance. He will then become convinced that the 

 Dominion is rich in coal measures, slate quarries, gold, silver, copper, 

 iron, and almost every mineral of commercial value;" that the climate 

 is favoiirable to health, and that there are millions of acres of grain- 

 raising and pasture lands awaiting colonization in the fertile belt of 

 the North-West and British Columbia." 



The following are given as the limits of the Dominion : " It is 

 bounded east by the Atlantic Ocean, Davis Strait, and Baflin's Bay ; 

 west, by Alaska, the Pacific Ocean, and Queen Charlotte's Sound ; 

 north, by the Arctic Ocean ; and south, south-east, and south-west, 

 by the United States. Area, 3,330,162 square miles, 393,996 square 

 miles larger than the United States. Of this immense area, nearly 

 eqtialling in extent the Continent of Europe, about 700,000 square 

 miles are covered with water." 



"With this notice of the latest Gazetteer of Canada, I draw this 

 part of my paper to a close. The great handiness of Mr. Lovell's 

 volume is surprising, when the breadth of area which it covers is 

 considered, and the mass of information which it contains. 



The occasion of the pi-esent rapid notice of early topographical 

 Sketches and Gazetteers of Canada, particularly Western Canada, 

 was, as I have already said, the republication in the Canadian 

 •Journal of the first Gazetteer of Upper Canada, published hx 1797, 



