XIU 



fessional field service has enabled him to ac- 

 quire a very critical local knowledge of almost 

 every part of the province, and to verify the 

 same by numerous surveys, and careful observa- 

 tions on the nature, quality, and properties of 

 the best and most valuable tracts; and from 

 which he ventures to believe he has been able 

 to present a body of information, relative to this 

 part of the British Trans-Atlantic dominions, 

 that has, up to this period, been sought for in 

 vain from any other work. Nothing has been 

 admitted into the description without mature 

 reflection, nor any thing but what he entertains 

 a well grounded confidence is borne out by the 

 actual state of the country. What is said of 

 the province of Upper Canada is the substance 

 of notes and memoranda made in that country 

 very recently, as well as a knowledge obtained 

 of it during an anterior service of six years 

 as an officer of the provincial navy upon the 

 lakes ; these have been corroborated and en- 

 larged from other sources of undeniable intel- 

 ligence and veracity. If in the detail of the 

 work he may be thought prolix, it has arisen 

 from a desire to display the features, the nature, 

 and the productions of the country in such a 

 manner as to point out where it is most sus- 

 ceptible of amelioration, and its agriculture of 



