46 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



reached again, — this is an outing as replete with interest and exhil- 

 aration, and offers as much in the way of adventure as the heart of 

 any lover of nature can desire. Especially so if it is taken late in the 

 summer or early in the autumn, when the poplar woods are begin- 

 ning to golden, and the mountain ash is laden with red-ripe clusters 

 of berries, and the career of the pestilent black fly is over and gone 

 for the season. 



The information we possess of the Hudson Bay slope is prac- 

 tically limited to what has been seen along the rivers, for it is 

 doubtful if any white man has yet crossed that country from east to 

 west north of the 49th parallel. The general impression is that a 

 large portion of the basin of Moose river is a treeless waste, covered 

 with peat bogs, and not likely to have any agricultural value. But 

 until more is known of it than any traveller or explorer has yet 

 learned by canoeing up and down the chief rivers, with here and 

 there an excursion of one or two miles into the timber out from their 

 banks, it is useless to speculate on the future of this region. 



The discovery of what appears to be a most valuable tract of 

 country, on the Quebec side, east of the Moose river basin, has only 

 been made known to us during the past year. By the explorations 

 of Henry O'Sullivan, of the Crown Lands Department, Quebec, and 

 of Dr. Robert Bell, of the Geological Survey, it has been ascertained 

 that in the basin of the Nottaway river and its tributaries, the Was- 

 wanipi and the Mekiskan or Bell, there is a tract of rich and finely- 

 timbered land as large in extent as the whole of England, of which 

 nothing whatever was known two years ago. The description given 

 of it in Mr. O'SuUivan's report, recently published, is intensely 

 interesting to every Canadian, as well as to students of physical geo- 

 graphy, and inspires us with the hope that regions of perhaps equal 

 extent and value may be found in Ontario also, beyond the height 

 of land. We shall only know by exploring for it, as has been done 

 in Quebec. The Hudson's Bay Company, whose only interest is in 

 the fur trade, we can depend wiil never tell us any good thing of the 

 country which might have the effect of inviting the settler, the miner 

 or the lumberman to disturb the haunts of the Indian trapper and 

 hunter."* 



* In the report of his explorations, dated 15th Maj', 1895, Mr. O'Sulli- 

 van says : "The general impression, formed no doubt from the experience 



