granite, and marble. Much of the rock oil or petroleum with which our houses are lighted where no gas is to be had, wells up from limestone rocks in south-west Ontario.

10. When the borer has "struck oil," as it is called, that is, bored into its sources, the oil often springs up faster than it can be stored, and runs to waste in large streams. Sometimes an oil-well takes fire, and sends up columns of flame, covering the land for miles around with clouds of black smoke.

II. In summer when the thousands of lakes, great and small, with which the whole of Canada is studded, are open water, they afford good sport to the leisurely angler.

12. Seated in a canoe, deftly made of birch bark, with a strong fishing-line tied round his left arm, the angler paddles along the shore. Suddenly he feels a sharp jerk. Attracted by the glitter of a spoon bait, as it is dragged along wobbling fish-like some yards behind the canoe, the maskallongé,* a fish of prey not unlike our English pike, has made a grab at⚫ its supposed victim, and, pierced by the barbed hooks, has itself become a victim. The Indian canoe is so light that if the fish be large, say from thirty to fifty pounds weight, it is able to drag the skiff along. Thus the yielding canoe, like a rod, "plays" the fish till its strength is spent, when the angler, shortening his line, draws it to the surface to show its gaping, well-armed jaws. By the aid of a stick, to which a large hook is lashed, he hauls the long-faced fish aboard, and paddles on to allure others. When the fish are running freely, a few hours suffice to secure as many as a canoe can hold.

13. The native Indians take salmon and sturgeon by spearing them from the rocks as well as by angling with baits. Both these fish abound in Canadian

waters.

* French for "long-faced."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Province of Quebec.

1. Canada Proper, won from the French about the middle of last century, consists of the northern half of the country drained by the mighty River St. Lawrence and by the great lakes, from the head of Lake Superior to the water-parting of Labrador; and of a strip of land at its widest about a hundred miles across, along the south or right bank of the St. Lawrence.

2. Stretching east and west for 1300 miles, Canada Proper has far more than three times the area of Great Britain. It is divided into two provinces, Quebec or Lower Canada, and Ontario or Upper Canada. The former has more than twice the area of Great Britain.

3. Nearly 300 miles above the mouth of the river St. Lawrence, which is ninety miles across at its opening, comes down from the north its first great feeder on the left or north bank, the Saguenay from Lake St. John's. Even so far upstream as this the St. Lawrence has a breadth of fifteen miles. East of the Saguenay the climate is so severe as greatly to mar the chance of raising crops from the fertile soil during the short

summer.

4. Four hundred miles from Anticosti stands the chief city of the lower province, the quaint walled city of Quebec, perched on a high cliff at the corner between the main river and a small feeder on its left bank, the Charles. At Quebec is shipped the spare produce of the lower basin of the St. Lawrence. This city will always have an interest for us on account of its skilful and daring capture by our troops under Wolfe, who there fell wounded, and died in the moment of victory. Its citadel, cathedral, and college, as well as its humblest cottages, though more than

250 years old, all look as fresh in that pure air as though painted only yesterday.

5. Half way between Quebec and Montreal we pass on the left bank the thriving port of Three Rivers, at the confluence of the St. Maurice. Above this the river widens to a lake, at the head of which enters on the right bank the Richelieu, a large feeder from Lake Champlain on the south.

6. Montreal is a handsome town built on an island 180 miles above Quebec, with a river frontage of three miles, and a fine cathedral. The St. Lawrence, east of Montreal, where it is two miles broad, is spanned by a superb tubular bridge named after our Queen, which enables the Grand Trunk Railway to pass on its way from east to west over twenty-four piers at a height of 60 feet above the river.

7. Above Montreal the river St. Lawrence receives on its left bank the River Ottawa, forming a boundary between the eastern province Quebec, whose inhabitants are chiefly French, and the smaller but more populous, wealthier, and more British western province Ontario.

The Province of Ontario.

8. Eighty-seven miles up the Ottawa, a river four times as long and far more beautiful than our Thames, stands the town of Ottawa, the seat of government, on the right bank of its namesake. Above the capital, the river, tumbling over a ledge, forms the grand Chaudière or Caldron falls.

9. The capital and the most important city of this western province is the university town of Toronto, on the north-western shores of Lake Ontario, a sheet of fresh water 180 miles long and 40 miles broad, with an area larger than that of Wales.

10. To enter Lake Ontario by ship one must quit the St. Lawrence at Montreal. A canal has been constructed as far as Kingston on the lake, to avoid the rapids caused by the shallow and rocky bed of the river.