3*0 TlMEHRI. 
much shorter than that between Chicago and New York 
via the Erie Canal. The St. Lawrence canals are wider 
too and admit vessels of double the tonnage. 
Nature has endowed the Dominion with a noble artery 
of communication from the great lakes to the sea in the 
St. Lawrence, in the length of its navigation, the volume 
of its waters, and the fertility of the vast area of country 
of which it forms the highway of communication with the 
Atlantic. Following it, not from its remote sources, but 
from Fond du Lac at the head of Lake Superior to the 
Straits of Belle Isle, the entire distance is nearly 3,000 
miles, almost as far as from New York to Liverpool, and 
yet Fond du Lac is 500 miles east of Red River, which 
is the eastern boundary of Manitoba, that central Pro- 
vince, which Lord DUFFER1N when Governor General of 
Canada happily termed the " bull's eye" of the Dominion. 
" The resources of the territory," I quote a recent 
authority, "to which the St. Lawrence and the Great 
Lakes are tributary, and form the natural communi- 
cation with the ocean, are most varied, and have 
been developed of late years to an extent without 
a parallel in the history of commercial enter- 
prise. When completed the Canadian canal system will 
be the finest in the world and will rival in importance 
the systems of the Suez and Panama canals." 
Next to the United States, Canada has the largest 
railway area in proportion to its population, — one mile 
for every 690 inhabitants ; and of the 59 States and 
Kingdoms of the world which have railway systems, 
Canada already ranks as the eighth in absolute mileage, 
and the fifth in the number of miles to each inhabitant. 
In 1 88 1 there were 8,000 miles of railroad throughout 
