THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 3 1 



1 75,000 square miles. Even at the lower of these estimates it is larger 

 than Mmnesota and Wisconsin by 16,000 square miles, larger than 

 Wisconsin and Michigan by 44, 000 square miles, larger by 7,000 square 

 miles than three States the size of New York, and larger than our part 

 of Ontario south of the French and Mattawan rivers by about 100,000 

 square miles. The passenger train on the Canadian Pacific Rail- 

 way which leaves Mattawa at the mouth of the Mattawan river at 8. 1 1 

 o'clock Monday evening, and goes at a speed, including all stops, of 

 25J miles per hour — through North Bay and Sudbury, coasting the 

 north shore of lake Superior 195 miles from Heron Bay to Fort 

 William, and on through Rat Portage at the foot of Lake of the 

 Woods — does not reach Ingolf station near the Ontario and Mani- 

 toba line until 11.57 a. m. on Wednesday. But the length of the 

 run is 1,004 miles. 



From these figures and comparisons it is seen that the New 

 Ontario is a large country — doubtless much larger than most of us 

 down here have ever conceived or suspected, for I think it must be 

 confessed that even the best informed among us have a great deal 

 yet to learn of its lengths and breadths, as well as of its physical as- 

 pects and varied resources. 



GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE REGION. 



But is not the title of the New Ontario something of a misno- 

 mer ? May we not say that it is really the Old Ontario ? Is it not 

 the very oldest part of our continent, and has it not furnished the 

 materials out of which not alone this lower Ontario but many States 

 across the great lakes have been built up ? Almost the whole ex- 

 tent of it, all excepting a portion of the Hudson Bay slope and a 

 small area around lake Temiscaming, is a mountain built country. 

 Through long cycles of time the most conspicuous physical feature 

 in North America was the high range of Archasn rocks which swept 

 in a magnificent curve through what is known in our time as the 

 regions of Labrador, Quebec, Ontario and the Northwest Terri- 

 tories, around the head of Hudson bay, from the Atlantic ocean in 

 the east to the Arctic in the north. These rocks covered an area of 

 over 2,000,000 square miles, and we can hardly guess the height to 

 which they were raised by the forces that heaved them into moun- 

 tain masses long, it may be, before there was any sea. The average 



