General Conditions. 349 
Much of the northern country remains unorganized 
and the vast North West Territory (2,665,000 square 
miles) between Hudson’s Bay and the Rocky Moun- 
tains, as well as Labrador, are for the most part unin- 
habited except by Indians and a few military and 
trading posts. 
The central interior region, dotted with lakes and 
intricate river systems, is a continuation of the forest- 
less, arid and subarid, plains and prairies of the country 
West of the Mississippi River, toward the north 
changing by steps into lowlands studded with open 
treegrowth, and barren tundra frozen all the year, a 
million square miles answering to this last description. 
The Pacific Slope is arough and lofty mountain country, 
the extension of the Rockies and Coast Ranges, with 
humid and temperate climate, more or less heavily 
wooded, about 600,000 square miles, with the Frazier 
River in the South forming the most important 
drainage. 
The Atlantic portion, south of the plateau-like, bare, 
or scantily wooded Hudson Bay and Labrador country, 
is formed by the slopes of the watersheds of the Great 
Lakes and of their mighty outlet, the St. Lawrence 
River and its Gulf; the slopes rising gradually north- 
ward to the low range of the Height of Land, a plateau 
with low hills, not over 1500 feet elevation, which cuts 
it off from the northern country and forms the limit of 
commercial forest. This region, the bulk of the 
provinces of Ontario and Quebec—a belt of not ex- 
ceeding 300 miles in width and about 1500 miles in 
length, altogether 300,000 square miles—with 93,000 
square miles of the maritime provinces, around 250 
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