most striking example on the globe of the masonry of Nature.

8. Through the valley flows the river Merced, a noble stream, a hundred feet wide. It is formed chiefly of the streams that leap and rush through the narrower passes above, and it is also swollen by the bounty of the marvellous waterfalls that pour down from the ramparts of the wider valley. The Yosemite cataract is the highest waterfall in the world. Towards the close of the dry season it has been described as a tape-line of water dropped from the sky; but at other times it is a powerful stream upwards of thirty feet broad. At the first leap the stream clears considerably more than a quarter of a mile; then it tumbles down a series of steep stairways for about four hundred feet, and then makes a jump to the meadows of five hundred feet more, making a fall in all of nearly half a mile.

9. The city of San Francisco is the great sea-port and commercial emporium for the whole of the west coast of North America, as well as the manufacturing city of the Pacific slope. It carries on a large trade with China and Japan, India and Australia.

LESSON LV.

THE DOMINION OF CANADA.-PHYSICAL FEATURES.

1. The name Canada means the "Place of Huts," and was in the first instance applied to a small Indian settlement on the banks of the river St. Lawrence. Now it is the name applied to a vast tract of country nearly as large as the whole of Europe. With three exceptions -Newfoundland, an island on the east; Alaska, the extreme north-west peninsula; and a strip along the coast of Labrador-it includes all the country north of the United States, and stretches from the Atlantic Ocean on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west, and northwards to the farthest known lands in the icy seas of Arctic

America. The area of this vast dominion is about 3,500,000 square miles, or about sixty times that of England and Wales.

2. The great characteristic physical features of the Dominion of Canada are the mountainous region in the west, the great plain spreading eastwards to the shores of Hudson's Bay, and the basin of the St. Lawrence River with its chain of great lakes.

3. The mountainous region of the west extends throughout almost the entire length of British North America, a distance of 1,400 miles, with an average breadth from east to west of about 400 miles. The two most distinct of these ranges are the Rocky Mountains, forming the western boundary of the Great Plain, and the Cascade Mountains nearer the Pacific Ocean. The latter range has peaks rising to a height of from five to eight thousand feet, whilst Mounts Brown and Hooker, in the former range, reach a height of over 16,000 feet. Between the Rocky and Cascade Mountains are great table-lands with narrow valleys, deep ravines, and rocky ridges.

4. A remarkable series of lakes lie in the Great Plain. They stretch in a line from Lake Superior in the south-east to the Fraser River in the north-west, and include Lakes Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Winnepegosis, Deer Lake, Lake Wollaston, Lake Athabasca, Great Bear Lake, and Great Slave Lake. If we take the line of these lakes for the base of a triangle, and the boundary of the United States and the chain of Rocky Mountains for the two sides, we shall form a vast triangle whose sides measure nearly a thousand miles, and the base fifteen hundred miles. This vast area of 300,000,000 acres may be described as a plain sloping gently down from the apex to the base. The apex at the foot of the Rocky Mountains is about 4,000 feet above the sea, and the base has an average elevation of about 1,000 feet.

5. The river systems which carry off the water flow of these long sloping plains are the Assiniboine, the Saskatchewan, the Athabasca, and the Peace. The first two unite their waters in Lake Winnipeg before finally

passing by the Nelson River into Hudson's Bay. The last two are tributaries of the Mackenzie, and ultimately

after passing through the Lake Athabasca and Great Slave Lake-reach the Arctic Ocean through the channel of that river. Between the Saskatchewan and the Athabasca, the River Churchill takes its rise and flows in a north-east course to Hudson's Bay.

6. The country included in the triangle has beer. called the "Prairie Region;" but the prairies pass into woodland in various localities to the north of the Saskatchewan, and in other parts there is an agreeable mixture of woodland and prairie. The province of Manitoba is almost wholly a rich alluvial prairie.

7. Northwards, from the boundary of Ontario and Quebec, is a great wooded region. It occupies the southern shores of Hudson's Bay, and extends down the valley of the Peace and Mackenzie Rivers nearly to the Arctic Ocean. The valley of the Peace River is especially noted for the excellence and abundance of its timber.

8. North and north-west from the great triangular plain around the north-west shores of Hudson's Bay and the shores of the Polar Sea, are the "barren grounds," a sterile treeless country, supporting only a few stunted bushes here and there. In winter the icy winds sweep across these barren grounds to such an extent as to render them uninhabitable to the hardy Indian, and even the reindeer is compelled to retire to the woods for shelter. The basin of the St. Lawrence River, including the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, may be described as the "Woodland Region." It is from this district, as well as from near the shores of the Pacific in British Columbia, that enormous quantities of timber for export are obtained.

LESSON LVI.

THE DOMINION OF CANADA.-THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT LAKES.

1. The St. Lawrence is by far the largest and most important river of the Dominion. It is the outlet for the surplus waters of a basin measuring nearly 300,000 square miles, and this basin includes the most wonderful series of fresh-water lakes in the world.

2. The gigantic river-system of the St. Lawrence may be said to take its rise almost in the centre of the great American continent-in the streams which enter Lake

Superior on the west. From the point where the St. Louis joins the lake to the sea-a distance of 2,000 miles -the lakes and the river form together a magnificent highway for commerce not to be surpassed in any part of the world.

3. Lake Superior-the most westward of the great lakes is the largest body of fresh water in the world, occupying a space nearly as large as Ireland. Its surface is about 630 feet above the sea-level, and its depth is about 1,000 feet. There are some noted copper mines along the shores of this lake.

4. Lake Superior is connected with Lake Huron on the east by a narrow channel, in which are the rapids of St. Mary. The surface of Lake Huron is fifty feet below that of Lake Superior, and there is a constant flow of water from the latter lake. Lake Huron covers an area equal to about four-fifths of that of Lake Superior. In its northern part are several islands, and a portion of the lake nearly cut off by them is called Georgian Bay. Lake Huron receives the waters of another lake almost as large as itself Lake Michigan--which lies wholly in the United States. Lake Huron is famous for its fisheries.

5. Lake Huron is connected southwards with Lake Erie by the river and lake of St. Clair and the river Detroit. This lake is about twice as large as Wales.