Part 164

The minerals are chiefly coal, silver, nickel, gold, copper, iron, asbestos, lead, salt, mineral oils and gypsum. Gold is or has been worked in Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario, and largely in Yukon (Klondike) and British Columbia, where there are yet immense fields to open up. Silver mines are worked in Ontario; those at Cobalt (producing also cobalt, nickel and arsenic) have been the richest yet discovered in Canada. Iron ore is found all over the Dominion. Copper has been mined to a considerable extent both in Quebec and Ontario, and the deposits of the ore are of great extent. There are very large coal deposits in Nova Scotia. The coast of British Columbia is rich in coal of a good quality. Coal is known to exist over a vast region, stretching from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles east of the Rocky Mountains, and north from the frontier for about one thousand miles.

The forest products of Canada constitute one of her most important sources of wealth. They find their way to all parts of the world--to the United States, to the United Kingdom, and to the Australian commonwealth.

Great progress has recently been made in the development of manufactures. The “national policy” comprises a high protective system, but since 1901 gives a preference to Britain.

Quebec has tanning industries and manufactures boot and shoes, the manufactures of woolen and cotton goods are increasing, and there are sugar refineries in Halifax and Montreal. Such wooden articles as doors, window sashes, etc., are manufactured in large numbers.

=People.=--The province of Ontario is thickly settled on the south, along the river and the lake shores, by a population which is mainly of British descent, with a considerable infusion of Germans. The province of Quebec is peopled in great part by descendants of the original French settlers; they are called _habitans_; many of them speak an archaic French dialect and keep up peculiar manners and customs, and they are Roman Catholic in religion.

The principal nationalities represented are English, Irish, Scotch, French, German and Indian, though there are also some few Dutch, Russian, Chinese, Welsh, Italians, Jews, half-breeds, etc.

Though English is the general language of Canada, the French language is by statute an official language in the Dominion parliament and in Quebec, but not now in any other province. Members of the Quebec and Manitoba parliaments may also address the House in either English or French.

RELIGION AND EDUCATION.--There is no state religion in Canada, and absolute toleration is there an accomplished fact. Roman Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, the Church of England, Baptists, Lutherans, and Congregationalists are all represented.

Canada has long been in the enjoyment of free education, and the control of the system is in the hands of the provinces, except where the Act of Confederation secures the permanence of the denominational schools which existed at the time of confederation. Teachers are trained at provincial normal schools.

In Ontario and Quebec there are separate schools for Protestants and Roman Catholics.

The principal universities of Canada with the dates of their foundation are as follows:

=PRINCIPAL UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES OF CANADA=

=====+========+=============+=========+=============+======+=====+======= Orga-|Colleges| Location | Control | President or| In- | Stu-|Volumes nized| | | | Chairman of |struc-|dents|in | | | | Faculty | tors | |Library -----+--------+-------------+---------+-------------+------+-----+------- 1881|Alma |St. Thomas, |Methodist|Robt. I. | 21 | 200| 2,500 |College |Ont. | |Warner, D.D. | | | 1838|Arcadia |Wolfville, |Baptist |Geo. Barton | 24 | 250| 2,500 |Univer- |N.S. | |Cutten, D.D. | | | |sity | | | | | | 1818|Dal- |Halifax, N.S.|Non-Sect.|A. Stanley | 86 | 417| 28,000 |housie | | |MacKenzie, | | | | | | |B.A. | | | 1894|Havergal|Toronto, Ont.|... |N. W. Hoyles,| 65 | 350| 1,000 |Ladies’ | | |Kc. | | | |College | | | | | | 1789|Kings |Windsor, Ont.|Prot. |Rev. T.W. | 13 | 91| ... |Univer- | |Epis. |Powell. D.D. | | | |sity | | | | | | 1844|Knox |Toronto, Ont.|Pres- |Rev. Alfred | 9 | 140| 22,000 |Theo. | |byt’n. |Gandier, D.D.| | | |College | | | | | | 1907|Mac- |A. de Belle- |Non-Sect.|F.C. | 50 | 407| 9,000 |donald |vue, Q. | |Harrison, | | | |College | | |D.Sc. | | | 1906|McGill |Vancouver, |Non-Sect.|Geo. E. | 24 | 340| 1,600 |Univ. |B.C. | |Robinson | | | |Col. | | |(Act.) | | | 1821|McGill |Montreal, |Indepen. |Wm. Peterson,| 280 |2,104|140,000 |Univer- |Can. | |M.A. | | | |sity | | | | | | 1887|McMaster|Toronto, Ont.|Baptist |A.L. | 30 | 300| 20,000 |Univer- | | |McCrimman, | | | |sity | | |M.A. | | | 1873|Montreal|Montreal, |Prot. |E.I. Rexford,| 5 | 30| 7,000 |Diocesan|Can. |Epis. |M.A. | | | |Theo. | | | | | | 1863|Mt. |Sackville, |Methodist|Byron C. | 21 | 250| 12,000 |Allison |N.B. | |Borden, D.D. | | | |Univer- | | | | | | |sity | | | | | | 1874|Ontario |Whitby, Ont. |Methodist|Rev. J.J. | 22 | 185| 7,000 |Ladies’ | | |Hare, M.A. | | | |College | | | | | | 1867|Presby- |Montreal, |Pres- |John | 21 | 80| 20,000 |terian |Can. |byt’n. |Scringer, | | | |College | | |D.D. | | | 1855|Provin- |Truro, N.S. |State |David Soloam,| 20 | 425| 4,000 |cial | | |LL.D. | | | |Nor. | | | | | | |College | | | | | | 1847|Queen’s |Kingston, |Non-Sect.|Very Rev. | 125 |1,610| 67,000 |Univer- |Ont. | |D.M. Gordon | | | |sity | | | | | | 1888|Ridley |St. Cath’n’s.|Anglican |Rev. J.O. | 15 | 160| 2,500 |College |Ont. | |Miller, M.A. | | | 1899|St. |Toronto, Ont.|... |Rev. D.B. | 18 | 250| ... |Andrew’s| | |Macdonald, | | | |College | | |M.A. | | | 1851|Trinity |Toronto, Ont.|Prot. |Rev. T.C.S. | 24 | 180| 15,000 |College | |Epis. |Macklem | | | 1845|Univ. of|Lennoxville, |Prot. |Rev. R.A. | 9 | 60| 11,500 |Bishop’s|Que. |Epis. |Parrock | | | |Col. | | | | | | 1912|Univ. of|Calgary, Alb.|Non-Sect.|F.H. Dougall | 11 | 268| ... |Calgary | | |(Act.) | | | 1852|Univer- |Quebec |Non-Sect.|Mgr. Amedee | 70 | 474|100,000 |site | | |Gosselin, | | | |Laval U.| | |M.A. | | | 1877|Univ. of|Winnipeg, |State |James A. | 43 | 881| 12,790 |Manitoba|Man. | |MacLean, | | | | | | |Ph.D. | | | 1800|Univ. of|Fredericton, |State |Cecil C. | 18 | 165| 10,000 |New |N.B. | |Jones (Chan.)| | | |Bruns- | | | | | | |wick | | | | | | 1907|Univ. of|Saskatoon, |State |Walter C. | 41 | 381| ... |Sas- |Sask. | |Murray, M.A. | | | |katche- | | | | | | |wan | | | | | | 1855|U. of |Antigonish, |Catholic |H.P. | 19 | 225| 22,000 |St. |N.S. | |MacPherson, | | | |Fran. | | |D.D. | | | |Xav. | | | | | | |Col. | | | | | | 1841|Victoria|Toronto, Ont.|Methodist|Rev. R.P. | 28 | 610| 25,080 |Col. and| | |Bowles, M.A. | | | |Univ. | | | | | | 1873|Wesleyan|Montreal, |Methodist|Rev. J. | 4 | 100| 5,000 |Theo. |Can. | |Smyth, B.A. | | | |Col. | | | | | | 1877|Wycliffe|Toronto, Ont.|Prot. |Thos. R. | 8 | 118| ... |College | |Epis. |O’Meara, | | | | | | |LL.D. | | | -----+--------+-------------+---------+-------------+------+-----+-------

=Government.=--Canada is a self-governing dominion created by an Act of the British Parliament in March, 1867, known as the British North America Act. The Act provides that the Constitution of the Dominion shall be similar in principal to that of the United Kingdom; that the executive authority shall be vested in the Sovereign of Great Britain and Ireland, and carried on in his name by a Governor-General and Privy Council; and that the legislative power shall be exercised by a Parliament of two Houses, called the “Senate” and the “House of Commons.”

Therefore, the executive government of Canada is vested in the king, who is represented by a Governor-General appointed by him for a term of five years. The emoluments of the Governor-General are, however, paid out of Canadian revenues.

The Governor-General has a right, which is, of course, very seldom exercised, to disallow or reserve bills for imperial consent. The Constitution of Canada cannot be altered save by the Imperial Parliament, but to all intents and purposes Canada has complete autonomy.

=The Legislature.=--The legislative power is a Parliament, consisting of an Upper House, styled the Senate, and a House of Commons.

The Senate consists at present of eighty-seven members, distributed between the various provinces thus: twenty-four for Ontario, twenty-four for Quebec, ten for Nova Scotia, ten for New Brunswick, four for Prince Edward Island, three for British Columbia, four for Manitoba, four for Alberta, and four for Saskatchewan. The members of the Senate are appointed for life by the Crown on the nomination of the Ministry for the time being; each nominee must be thirty years old, a resident in the province for which he is appointed, a natural born or naturalized subject of the king, and the owner of property amounting to four thousand dollars.

The House of Commons is chosen every five years at longest, and consists of two hundred and thirty-one members, elected as follows: eighty-two being elected for Ontario, sixty-five for Quebec, sixteen for Nova Scotia, eleven for New Brunswick, fifteen for Manitoba, eleven for British Columbia, three for Prince Edward Island, twelve for Alberta, fifteen for Saskatchewan, and one for Yukon. The House of Commons is also composed of natural born or naturalized subjects of the king; no property qualification is necessary, and its members are elected upon a very wide suffrage. The members of the House themselves elect their Speaker, and twenty, including the Speaker, form a quorum.

Each province has also a separate Legislature and administration, with a Lieutenant-Governor, appointed by the Governor-General, at the head of the Executive.

=The Judicature.=--Justice is administered, as in England, by judges, police magistrates, and justices of the peace, of whom the first named are appointed by the Governor-General, for life, from among the foremost men at the Bar in the several provinces. The highest court is the Supreme Court of Canada, composed of a Chief Justice and five associate judges, and holding three sessions in the year at Ottawa. The only other Dominion Court, viz., the Exchequer Court of Canada, is presided over by a separate judge, and its sittings may be held anywhere in Canada. The Provincial Courts include the Court of Chancery, Court of King’s Bench, Court of Error and Appeal, Superior Courts, County Courts, General Sessions, and Division Courts. The duties of coroners are generally analogous to those in force in England, as are also methods of civil and criminal procedure, while trial by jury prevails.

=Cities.=--The capital and seat of government of the Canadian Dominion is at Ottawa, population, 1911, 87,062.

Montreal, however, is the largest city of Canada, 470,480. It has extensive trade and manufactures, and from it the magnificent Victoria tubular bridge carries the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada across the St. Lawrence, which is here two miles wide.

Quebec, 79,910, the capital of the lower province, is the great shipping place for the Lower St. Lawrence, and is a picturesque old town, with walls and fortifications. Near it are the memorable Plains of Abraham.

Toronto, 376,538, on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario, is the local capital of the western provinces and the educational center of the Dominion, possessing a university and numerous schools.

Other cities include: Winnipeg, Man., 136,035; Vancouver, B. C, 100,401; Hamilton, Ont., 81,969; Quebec, Que., 78,910; Halifax, N. S., 46,619; London, Ont., 46,300.

=Ottawa= is situated upon the south bank of the Ottawa River, one hundred and twenty miles from its junction with the St. Lawrence at Montreal. The river here forms the splendid Chaudière Falls (two hundred yards wide and forty feet high), above which a suspension bridge spans the river, and which supply the motive-power for the numerous lumber mills, flour mills and factories.

East of the city the River Rideau forms a second fall. The Rideau Canal passes through the center of the city, and connects with the Rideau Lakes, and so with the great lakes beyond. Opposite the city, to the northeast, the Gatineau River joins the Ottawa.

It is a city of stately public buildings, of turfed drives and wooded pleasure grounds, and there is a constant round of social and official events connected with the meetings of Parliament and other public functions. The Grand Trunk system has added to the attractions of the city by building the Chateau Laurier, which enjoys a continent-wide reputation as being in the first rank of famous hotels.

The parliamentary buildings, constructed in the Italian Gothic style after 1860, are on a bluff on the river bank. They include the handsome library building and the Victoria Tower (one hundred and eighty feet). Adjoining buildings on Parliament Hill are devoted to departments of the Dominion government. The residence of the Governor-General--an old fashioned building, called Rideau Hall--is about a mile from the city. The post-office, city hall, banks and telegraph offices are handsomely built of stone.

Ottawa is the place of residence of the bishop of Ontario (Church of England), and of the Roman Catholic bishop of Ottawa, who has a cathedral here. There are a normal school and a collegiate institute, a very large college conducted by the Oblate Fathers, a ladies’ college, a musical academy, an art school, a well-equipped geological museum, and the parliamentary library, with three hundred thousand volumes.

The industries of Ottawa are mostly connected with lumber. In the winter thousands of men are engaged in cutting timber and drawing it to the streams, and in the spring the freshets carry the rafts down to the mills. Flour, iron wares, bricks, leather, and matches are also manufactured.

The city was begun in the last years of the eighteenth century by a settler named Wright, of Boston, Massachusetts, who built a residence near the Chaudière, and called the village which he founded Hull. The construction of the Rideau Canal stimulated the settlement, which was called Bytown. In 1854 its name was changed to Ottawa, and the town was created a city. In 1858 Ottawa was chosen as the administrative capital of Canada. The first parliament met here in 1865.

=History.=--In 1534 Jacques Cartier landed on the Gaspé coast of Quebec, of which he took possession in the name of Francis I., king of France. Little was done by way of settlement till 1608, when Champlain founded Quebec. From this time till 1763 Canada, from Acadia (Nova Scotia) to Lake Superior and down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, was held to be French territory.

The struggle between Great Britain and France for supremacy was long and bitter, but ended in 1763 with the treaty of Paris, by which all the French dominions in Canada were ceded to Britain, save the small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, retained by France as fishing stations. Hudson Bay territory, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland had passed to England by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

Through the American War of Independence, what is now Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois was lost in 1783 to the United States, no longer British colonies. Quebec was in 1791 divided into Lower and Upper Canada. A rebellion took place in 1837-1838, and the provinces were reunited in 1840. Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick were separated from Nova Scotia in 1770 and 1784. British Columbia was made a crown colony in 1858, and Vancouver Island joined to it in 1866. The confederation of all the British North American provinces--except Newfoundland--took place in 1867-1871, and the prosperity of the Dominion was only temporarily disturbed by the Red River rebellion of 1869.

The fishery rights have repeatedly been a source of controversy between Canada and Great Britain on the one hand and the United States on the other, and the dispute about sealing in Behring Sea and off the Alaskan coasts was only settled by arbitration in 1893. The Alaska boundary dispute was settled in 1903.

A proposed reciprocity agreement with the United States in the year 1911 saw the decisive defeat at the polls of the Laurier policy and the Liberal party. In October Robert L. Borden took over the reins of government, as Premier, and Earl Grey was succeeded as Governor-General by the Duke of Connaught. In 1916 the Duke of Devonshire succeeded as Governor-General.

The great European war of 1914 and following brought Canada to the vigorous support of Great Britain and the Entente Allies, and has done much toward the political, military and economic solidarity of the Dominion.

=MEXICO= (or _Méjico_; Span. pron. _Meh´hē-co_, from a native word), a federal republic of North America, embraces twenty-seven states, a federal district, and four territories. It extends between the United States and Guatemala, with an extreme length of nearly two thousand miles; its breadth varies between one thousand and (in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec) one hundred and thirty miles. It has a coast-line of almost six thousand miles, but with scarcely a safe harbor beyond the noble haven of Acapulco. On the Atlantic side, with its sand banks and lagoons, there are only open roadsteads, or river-mouths generally closed to ocean vessels by bars and shallows; harbor works, however, have been constructed at Vera Cruz and Tampico.

From the southeast and northwest extremities of the republic there extend the peninsulas of Yucatan and Lower California, enclosing the Gulfs of Campeche and California, respectively. In area (751,300 square miles) Mexico almost equals Great Britain and Ireland, France, Germany and Austria-Hungary together.

=Surface.=--For the most part Mexico consists of an immense tableland, which commences in the United States, and rises to over eight thousand one hundred feet at Marquez, seventy-six miles north by west of Mexico City; at El Paso, on the northern frontier, the elevation is only three thousand seven hundred and seventeen feet. The most important mountain range is the Sierra Madre (over ten thousand feet, and extending from Tehuantepec into the United States); parallel with this run the Sierras of the east coast and of Lower California.

The surface of the country is also much broken up by short cross-ridges and detached peaks. There are numerous volcanoes, but only a few of them are more or less active. The more prominent are Orizaba (Citlaltepetl, “star mountain”), Popocatepetl (“smoking mountain”); Ixtaccihuatl (“white woman”); Nevada de Toluca, and Malinche.

On the Atlantic side the plateau descends abruptly to the narrow strip (about sixty miles) of gently sloping coast land; toward the Pacific, where the coast lands vary in width from forty to seventy miles, the descent is more gradual.

=Rivers and Lakes.=--From their rapid fall the rivers of such a mountainous region could never be of value for transport or communication. The Rio Grande del Norte, the boundary river, is only navigable for sixty miles up from the Gulf of Mexico, and the largest interior river--the Rio Grande de Santiago, flowing west to the Pacific--is barred across by many waterfalls, though its upper course expands to form Lake Chapála, the largest sheet of water in Mexico, fully fifty miles in length.

=Climate and Landscape.=--Though Mexico lies just on the border of the torrid zone, the climate is governed to a far greater extent by elevation than by position in latitude, and distinct climates are recognized at different stages just as in the plateau of Abyssinia.

The low coast land and the maritime region below an elevation of two thousand feet, called the Tierra Caliente, presents all the characteristics of tropical lands.

Above an elevation of two thousand feet, and up the slopes of the mountains to a height of about five thousand feet, a climate is found in which the landscape takes the aspect of that of the temperate zone.

This stage is known as the Tierra Templada.

Still higher, above five thousand feet, a cool region is reached, which is known as the Tierra Fria. This includes the summit of the tableland and the pine covered slopes of the mountains up to the height at which some of the peaks are capped with perennial snows. Much of this high tableland is valuable only for pasture; towards the north and northeast, where the plateau is wider, the landscape becomes bare and dry, and salt lakes like those of the plateau region of the western United States appear. Deeply cut “cañons” or “barrancas,” gorges with steep walls furrowed out by the mountain torrents, are characteristic of the plateau.