ADMINISTRATION 177 



the world — the Royal Navy of the mother- 

 land. 



This is only a glance at the conditions of 

 the present ; while each Imperial and Canadian 

 service, department, branch, and sub-division 

 has a long, romantic, and most important 

 history of its own. The lighthouse service 

 alone could supply hero-tales enough to fill 

 a book. The weather service is full of absorb- 

 ing interest. And, what with wireless tele- 

 graphy, submarine bells, direction indicators, 

 microthermometers as detectors of ice, and 

 many other new appliances, the whole practice 

 of navigation is becoming an equally interest- 

 ing subject for a book filled with the * fairy 

 tales of science.' Even hydrography — that is, 

 the surveying and mapping (or ' charting ') 

 of the water — has an appealing interest, to 

 say nothing of its long and varied history. 

 Jacques Cartier, though he made no charts, 

 may be truly called the first Canadian hydro- 

 grapher; for his sailing directions are admir- 

 ably clear and correct. In the next century 

 we find Champlain noting the peculiarities 

 of the Laurentian waters to good effect ; while 

 in the next again, the eighteenth, we come 

 upon the famous Captain Cook, one of the 

 greatest hydrographers of all time. Cook was 



A. A. M 



