Commercial Relations with Canada. 319 
supply for centuries untold millions of people on this 
continent. The coal of Nova Scotia and of Vancouver 
Island is bituminous and excellent for domestic and 
manufacturing purposes, the annual output being valued 
at $3,000,000 apart from the large output used by the 
people themselves. Besides coal there are extracted 
from the earth in paying quantities, gold, iron, copper, 
phosphates and building stone, which are being gradually 
developed in the face of many obstacles, chiefly the want 
of sufficient capital ; and it may interest those of my 
brother planters who believe in some form of lime being 
indispensable as a fertiliser in our heavy clay soils, to 
hear that Dr. Sterry Hunt, in a recent paper before 
the American Institute of Mining Engineers, called 
attention to the extent and importance of the apatite de- 
posits of Canada existing in Ontario and Quebec. 
These areas have as yet been but partially explored. In 
1883, 17,840 tons of apatite were shipped from Montreal 
principally to British ports. This year the shipments 
are estimated at 24,000 tons. I allude to this particu- 
larly because I believe it likely that some of the rock 
gypsum which several planters have used with excellent 
results on their fields during the last two years is this 
very apatite, and which besides lime contains phospho- 
ric, fluoric, and muriatic acids. 
No account of the progress of the Dominion of Canada 
would be complete without reference to its magnificent 
canal system, by which the obstructions to navigating 
the internal waters of the Dominion have been overcome, 
and the chief centres of commerce connected with one 
another. Navigation between Chicago and Montreal, 
through the great lakes and the St, Lawrence canal, is 
