Its surface is about twenty feet below that of Huron, but no less than 326 feet higher than that of Ontario, the next lake on the east. This gives rise to the wonderful Falls of Niagara, in the river of the same name, connecting the two lakes.

6. For the first twenty miles after leaving Lake Erie the river Niagara falls only fifteen feet, but in the halfmile of "rapids" before the fall is reached the descent is fifty-five feet. Goat Island divides the fall. The Canada, or Horseshoe Fall, is 600 yards broad and fifty-one yards high. The American part of the falls is 200 yards broad and nearly fifty-five yards high. In the river above the Falls the water is nearly on a level with the banks, but below the Falls the banks are from 80 to 100 yards in perpendicular height. The roar of the water can be heard forty miles off.

7. Ontario is the smallest but most important of the lakes as a highway for commerce. It has many large and thriving towns built on its banks, of which Toronto and Hamilton are the chief.

8. From Lake Ontario to the sea the St. Lawrence measures about 670 miles. On leaving the lake the river widens out into the “Lake of the Thousand Isles,” and after a course of about 150 miles it again widens out and encloses the island of Montreal, on which stands the important town of the same name. Here it receives the waters of the Ottawa-a splendid river, noted for its waterfalls and fine scenery.

9. Half-way between Montreal and Quebec-another 150 miles the river forms Lake St. Peter, and below the lake the river St. Maurice swells the volume of the

mighty river. From Quebec to its mouth, where it widens out into a gulf, the river measures about 400 miles. At Quebec it is two miles wide. A hundred miles lower down, where it is joined by the river Saguenay, draining Lake St. John, it measures fifteen miles across, and at its mouth about ninety miles.

10. The river St. Lawrence is blocked by ice during four or five months of the year, but for the remaining months the river is navigable for vessels of the largest

size as far as Montreal. Between Montreal and Lake Ontario the navigation is blocked by rapids and shallows, and to avoid these a canal has been constructed from Ottawa to Kingston-on-Ontario. Ontario and Erie again are joined by the Welland Canal.

11. This magnificent water-way of lakes, canals, and rivers, is the great outlet for the corn and other productions, not only from the Dominion, but also from many of the United States; and so perfect is it, that a ship freighted with corn at Chicago on Lake Michigan can sail right into the docks at Liverpool.

1. Over such a vast extent of country as that inIcluded in the Dominion of Canada, there must of necessity be great varieties of climate. But of the country, as a whole, we may say that the temperature is lower than that of countries in corresponding latitudes in Europe, that the extremes of heat and cold are very great, that the climate of the eastern part is more severe than that of the western, and that the interval between winter and summer, and summer and winter, is very short.

2. The cold in winter in all parts of the Dominion is very severe, but the unusual dryness of the air and the absence of high winds make it less felt than it would be if combined with a damp atmosphere. On the whole, the climate may be said to be healthy; fatal epidemics, and even contagious diseases, are almost unknown, and the inhabitants suffer much less from coughs and colds than the people of Great Britain.

3. In Quebec the winter begins in November, and lasts till the end of April; but in Ontario, especially in the neighbourhood of the Great Lakes, it is much shorter, as well as being less severe. The river is usually frozen over as low down as the city of Quebec for five

months in the year, and even in the lower parts naviga tion is stopped by the immense quantities of drift ice which float up and down.

4. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, being nearer the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream have a somewhat milder climate; but the shores of New Brunswick are subject to fogs. The climate of British Columbia, on the Pacific seaboard, is milder than that of England, and not liable to the extremes of heat and cold which prevail in the other provinces.

5. The North-west Territories have an extreme climate. The summers are short and hot, and the winters long and intensely cold. Near the mouth of the Mackenzie River, on the shores of Hudson's Bay, and over the long stretch of country between, the soil will often freeze during the winter to a depth of from ten to twenty feet, whilst at Melville Island winter seems to have no end.

6. Notwithstanding the cold, winter is the season of enjoyment in Canada. The air is clear and dry, the sky is bright and unclouded, the ground is covered with snow, making capital roads, and the rivers and the greater part of the lakes are frozen over. All out-door occupations are at an end; * sleighs and skates are brought from their summer hiding-places, and there is neither let nor hindrance to social enjoyment or out-door amusements.

7. Although the farmers are driven from their fields by the frost and snow, yet even the intense cold gives them one great advantage in this country: they can fatten their beasts in summer, and by killing them when the cold weather sets in it keeps them frozen, to be disposed of at pleasure during the winter. Even milk is kept in this way, and the white frozen mass is sold by the pound.

8. Spring is short in Canada, and the melting of the snows and thawing of the ground render it, perhaps, for a time the least pleasant season. The summer-July and August especially-is very hot; and in the St.

Lawrence valley, maize, grapes, melons, apricots, and tomatoes, ripen in the open air; but the nights are cool, and the early morning breezes are fresh and bracing.

9. Much has been written about the beauty of the woods during the short Canadian autumn. "It would seem as though autumn had collected together all the past glories of the year, adding them to her own; she borrows the gay colours that have been lying during the summer months among the flowers, in the fruits, upon the plumage of the bird, on the wings of the butterfly, and working them together in broad and glowing masses, she throws them over the forest to grace her triumph."

10. The chief industries of the people of the Dominion are corn-raising, stock-rearing, dairy-farming, “lumbering" (felling timber and preparing it for export), fishing, trapping animals for their skins and furs, mining, and shipbuilding. The chief articles of export are corn and flour, timber, butter and cheese, cattle and sheep, fish, and furs and skins.

11. Corn-raising, stock-rearing, dairy-farming, and lumbering, are carried on chiefly in the basin of the St. Lawrence. Lumbering is also an important occupation on the Pacific coast. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are noted for their sea-fisheries. The rivers of British Columbia and many of those in the Territories swarm with salmon. Mining operations are not very extensive; copper is found in plenty round the lakes Huron, Superior, and Ontario; coal is found in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, and in the valley of the Saskatchewan, in the North-west Territory; and gold in British Columbia and Nova Scotia. Ontario yields--besides copper-silver, salt, and petroleum or rock oil. The trapping of animals for their furs is the chief industry of the sparsely-populated North-west Territory. Ship-building is carried on at most of the eastern ports, and the mercantile fleet of Canada is said to exceed that of any other country except England, France, and the United States.

12. The trade of Canada is chiefly with the United States and Great Britain, the larger share of the imports