broken off from a cliff on the banks. The
latter is six feet long, four broad, and six inches thick.]

We know that rich iron mines exist, and are steadily worked in Lower
Canada; we know that a vast deposit of iron, one of the finest in the
world, has lately been discovered on the Ottawa, a river in the township
of M'Nab; and we know that nothing prevents the Marmora and Madoc iron
from being used but the finishing of the Trent navigation. Lead abounds
on the Sananoqui river, and at Clinton, in the Niagara district; whilst
plumbago, now so useful, is abundant throughout the line, where the
primary and secondary rocks intersect each other. Mr. Logan, employed by
the government, _ex cathedra_, says there is no coal in Canada; but
still it appears that in the Ottawa country it is very possible it may
be found, and that, if it is not, Cape Breton and the Gaspe lands will
furnish it in abundance; and, as Canada may now fairly be said to be all
the North American territory, embraced between the Pacific somewhere
about the Columbia river, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, for a political
union exists between all these provinces, if an acknowledged one does
not, coal will yet be plentiful in Canada.

Canada, thus limited, is now, _de facto_, ay, and _de jure_, British
North America; and a fair field and a fertile one it is, peopled by a
race neither to be frightened nor coaxed out of its birthright.

The advantages of Canada are enormous, much greater, in fact, than they
are usually thought to be at home.

The ports of St. John's and of Halifax, without mentioning fifty others,
are open all the year round to steamers and sea-going vessels; and when
railroads can at all seasons bring their cargoes into Canada proper,
then shall we live six months more than during the present torpidity of
our long winters. John Bull, transported to interior Canada, is very
like a Canadian black bear: he sleeps six months, and growls during the
remaining six for his food.

Then, in summer, there is the St. Lawrence covered with ships of all
nations, the canals carrying their burthens to the far West and the
great mediterraneans of fresh water, opening a country of unknown
resources and extent.

These great seas of Canada have often engaged my thoughts. Tideless,
they flow ever onward, to keep up the level of the vast Atlantic, and in
themselves are oceans. How is it that the moon, that enormous
blister-plaster, does not raise them? Simply bec