ADDRESS BEFORE BRITISH SCIENCE ASSOCIATION. 365 
ary must be less in measurement than the southern. All lines are required to be 
gone over twice with chains of unequal length, and the land surveyors are check- 
ed by astronomical determinations. 
The sources of the Frazer river were first reached in February, 1875, and 
found in a semi-circular basin, completely closed in by glaciers and high bare 
peaks, at an elevation of 5,300 feet. The hardy discoverer, Mr. E. W. Jarvis, 
traveled in the course of that exploration 900 miles on snow-shoes, much of it 
with the thermometer below the temperature of freezing mercury, and lived for 
the last three days, as he expresses it, ‘‘on the anticipation of a meal at the jour- 
mey’s end.’”’ Mr. Jarvis describes how on one occasion, having walked into a 
hole concealed by snow, the current caught his snow-shoes, turning them upside 
down, and held him like a vise, so that it required the united efforts of all his 
party to extricate him. 
The final decision of the Canadian Government to adopt Burrard’s Inlet for 
the Pacific terminus of their railway relegated to the domain of pure geography 
a great deal of knowledge acquired in exploring other lines—explorations in 
which Messrs. Jarvis, Horetsky, Keefer, and others had displayed remarkable 
daring and endurance. They had forced their way from the interior to the sea- 
coast, or from the coast to the Peace river, Pine or Yellow Head passes, through 
country previously unknown, to Port Simpson, to Burke Channel, to the mouth 
of the Skeena, and to Bute Inlet, so that a region but recently almost a blank on 
our maps, which John Arrowsmith, our last great authority, left’'very imperfectly 
sketched, was now known in great detail, and, he regretted to add, the better 
known, the less admired. The botany had been reported on by Mr. Macoun, 
and the geology by Dr. Dawson, pari passu with its topography. 
A discourse on American geography would be incomplete without reference 
to the great design of piercing the Isthmus of Panama, with which Count Ferdi- 
nand de Lesseps had connected hisname. Out of the conflict of about ten com- 
peting lines the oldest and the youngest alone survive. The route by Lake Nica- 
ragua 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 had 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 1074 feet. 
“The Panama route would shorten the canal to one-fourth of this length, and it 
was a cardinal point with its author to dispense altogether with locks. As they 
were favored by the presence of Lieutenant Bonaparte Wyse—M. de Lessep’s 
coadjutor—he need say no more, except that the enthusiastic reception given to 
M. de Lesseps in Swansea, not many weeks ago, was sure evidence that this great 
industrial center took a keen interest in his project from a commercial point of 
view ; and they might safely leave capitalists, engineers, and diplomatists to fight 
out their own battle, only concerned that by one route, if not by both, the world 
‘might reap in our day the vast benefit it already owed, in another quarter, to his 
genius and indomitable perseverance. 
