Arizona silver belt., 1894-11-17
AaAsLE AREA OF CANADA.
cuniined b . Narrow strip Along the
 Border of the United States,

Conuneo tO Narrow Strip Along the
 Border of the United States,
 Some Canadians ostentatiously boast that their colony is of greater area than the republic of the United States, while they quietly ignore the facts that about one-half of their dependency is covered with perpetual or all but perpetual snow and ice, and that no small part of the remainder is but sparsely inhab- ited or habitable except by Indians and Indian-Frcnch half-breeds, who eke out preearious subsistence by fishing, by the seanty proceeds from slaughter ing fur-bearing animals, and on meagcr governm ent ratious. The arable DOT tion of Canada, says the Springfield Republican, is in general but . very broken and irregular fringe on the ncrthern boundary of the United states; and although the European set clement of the country began nearly 300 years ago, its present population is only about 5000, ,OO0--from the Atlantic c the Pacific--or over 250,000 less than the population of the state of Pennsyl- vania Canada to-day consists of but seven provinces. One of these, Prince Edward island, is little more than one-ffth the area of the little state of Vermont, and another, British Colum- bia, sea of mountaiuS-c covering some 35O0OO square miles--contains less ara ble land than the comparatively small contiguous state of Washington. The desirable land for tillagc In the three small maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward island and New Brunswick snow chiefly occupied by an excellent Scotch. English people, whose number is all but stationary or retrograde. About one-half of what is claimed to be the Province of Quebec is sparscly inhabited by Indians, Cana dian-krench half-breeds and the hardi- est of ''habitanS." Much of Che re- mainder. on both banks oi the River St. Lawrence aud on the northeast bank ot the Ottawa river is a good quality of soil, and the greater part of 1t is now densely populated by Canadian French
 A portion of the province of Quebec consisting of about 100 townships called the eastern townships, lying be- tween the parishes south of the St. Lawrence and the northern boundaries of the states of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, k good general farming land, now in great part occu- pied by mixed population composed of "old country Eughsh-speal,ing peo- pie, Canadian French and some de- scendants of the New Engla-.a royal ists of the last century For many years the English-Speal<ing people have been steadily nearing a minority. There are at present but two cities of any considerable size and business ini- portance in the whole of Canada .the one, Montreal, in the province of Quebec, making a population about two-thirds CanHdlan-Erenchl of some what over 20O,OO0; and the other, To- ronto, the capital of the province ot ontario, with population (mostly English spealSing) something below 600, There are also seven other considerable towns called cities, ranging from about 1000 to GO,0OO in- habitants; eleven from 5nCp0 to about eo,OoO and nearly twenty-five of from 5000 to 10000 each These are nearly all the towns In Canada from ocean to ocean; and not few of them aFe spoken of by the people themselves as being stationary or decaying towns. The St. Lawrence Atlantic ports of Quebec and Montreal are arctic ice bound abotit Unelhalf the year,