8 one of Canada's explorers. 



voyageur, and taken no alcoholic drinks. He is up to all 

 sorts of expedients in emergencies, and does not believe in 

 "accidents" and misadventures; and has never had any, be- 

 cause he knows how to avoid them. Old campaigners of this 

 ilk never think of exploiting their sufferings and hairbreadth 

 escapes as evidences of heroism worthy of plaudit. On the 

 contrary, they would be mortified to admit them. * * * 

 Quite likely these recitals might impress the home members 

 of travel clubs, but to my own mind, to glory in what one has 

 suffered through inexperience or awkwardness would seem to 

 be about as sensible as to boast how many rod tips a man had 

 broken in a season on a salmon stream, as evidence of prowess 

 in handling big fish. * * * 



Already the published reports of Dr. Bell alone comprise 

 more than 190 titles on a great variety of scientific subjects, yet 

 so quietly and unostentatiously have his duties been performed 

 that the public is not cognizant of them, nor perhaps ever heard 

 of him, while plaudits attend the high roller who has com- 

 passed the earth in eighty days, or perchance outlined a rapid 

 transit trip to Mars or the moon. Meanwhile, immense geo- 

 graphical areas have been mapped and charted and districted 

 and divided into Territories and Provinces and settled, which 

 had been almost terra incog-nita until this indomitable sur- 

 veyor first set foot on them. And up to present date no abstract 

 of these researches has ever been published. Modesty or pre- 

 occupation has intervened, though he has been often im- 

 portuned. But at last I have procured from him the sub- 

 joined enumeration, which reads like Revelation, and for 

 which I am sure you will congratulate me and your numerous 

 readers. 



Beginning in 1S57, as a youth of fifteen, under the late Sir 

 W. E. Logan, Director of the Geological Survey, he served for 

 the first three years as assistant to the principal members of the 

 staff, and has continued as the head of parties in the same work 

 ever since. Commencing: on the east side of the continent, his 



