Canada and her resources: an essay

Preface

The writer, in submitting this Essay to the attention of his readers, disclaims all pretension to originality. His labour has been the plodding one of a compiler, and thus he has availed himself liberally of the resources within his reach. Keeping in view the desiderata of "practical utility and comprehensiveness, combined with conciseness," his sole object has been to produce a Treatise characterised by these features, and thereby to contribute his mite to the advancement of his native country. He therefore dedicates this Essay to The People of Canada, in the hope that the ensuing pages may be found to contain reliable information with regard to the resources and present position of the Province, and prove of permanent utility " for purposes of reference."

Montreal, May, 1855.

" It is scarcely possible that an Englishman of sensibility and imagination should look without pleasure and national pride on the vigorous and splendid youth of " (a colony which is destined yet to be) " a great people, whose veins are filled with our blood, whose minds are nourished with our literature, and on whom is entailed the rich inheritance of our civilization, our freedom, and our glory." — Macaulay.

Index

PAGE.

Introduction. — Plan of this Treatise, 7

Geological Structure — Chapter I, 8

Preliminary Outline, 8

"Western Geological Division of Canada, 9

Eastern do. do. do 19

Northern do. do. do 20

Geographical Features — Chapter II, 22

Boundaries of whole Province, 22

The Magdalen Islands — Anticosti, „ 23

Natural Divisions of Lower Canada — the Ottawa Country — the

Eastern Townships, &c, &c, 23

Natural Divisions of Upper Canada, 34

River St. Lawrence,. 38

The Lakes 38

Natural Products — Chapter ILT, 40

The Forest, 40

Mines and Minerals, 42

The Fisheries, 46

Agricultural Produce, 47

Growth of Flax and Hemp, 48

Manufactures — Chapter IV, 49

Commerce: — Chapter V, 61

General Commerce, , 52

Trade with United States — its progress, 55

The Reciprocity Treaty, and its features, 55

Intercolonial Trade — its position — suggestions as to its extension, ... 57

The Canadian Passenger Route, 58

Ocean Steamers 60

Canals of Canada, , 61

The Railway System, 63

The Grand Trunk Railway 64

The Great Western Railway, 66

Other Railways, 68 i

Tl INDEX.

AGE.

Social Institutions — Chapter VI„ 76

The Municipal System, 71

The Municipal Loan Fund, 73

General Legislation, 74

The Postal System " . . . %

The Legal and Judicial Systems, 75

The Banking System, 78

The Press, 81

Educational Institutions — Chapter VII, . . . 83

University and Colleges of Upper Canada, 83

The Normal Schools do do 84

The Grammar Schools do do 85

The Common Schools do do 86

Other Colleges do do 91

The School System of Lower Canada, 92

Political Institutions — Chapter VIII, 94

Statistics, illustrative of the progress and position of Canada —

Chapter IX, 98

Population — its increase, . , 98

Emigration, 100

Rise of Towns, ' 101

Population by origin 102

Religious Census — number of Churches, 103

Area of Canada, 103

Agricultural Produce, and contrast therein between Canada and Ohio, 104

Revenue and Expenditure, 106

Public Securities 107

Public Debt of the Province, 108

The Climate of Canada — Chapter X, 109

Climate of Canada West, 1(9

" Lower Canada, 112

Prevailing Winds, , 113

Longevity in Canada, 114

Concluding Remarks, 114

CANADA AND HEE RESOURCES.

" Canada, the brightest jewel of the British Crown.

The Province of Canada is attracting increased and deservedly merited attention. Her resources have of late years been rapidly developing, and the growth of her population is steadily and annually augmenting. A bright future is opening out to her, and her progress, agricultural, commercial and industrial, cannot fail to be much accelerated, so soon as the people of Great Britain and of Europe come to be aware of the many advantages which are held out to intending emigrants by this important dependency of the British Crown.

No country in the world, — we boldly aver it, — offers a more desirable residence than Canada, for her attractions consist not only in every material comfort, but also in the gift of political liberty and educational advantages to all her inhabitants ; and these attractions are held out, not merely to that class of emigrants who have some small means, or to that other class who are possessed of comparatively greater means, but to whom increasing families and the keen competition of the old world make a change to the new desirable, but also to the industrious mechanic, to the hardy agriculturist, and, in fact, to all classes of settlers.

That such is undoubtedly the case, the following rapid review of her position and resources, however necessarily imperfect, will abundantly demonstrate.

In endeavoring, therefore, to treat the subject in a systematic and concise manner, and yet to present some adequate idea of the Province of Canada and her resources, I now proceed preliminarily to describe the geological structure of the Province, — a subject which, however interesting to the scientific inquirer, will not probably attract the attention of the general reader. I will then trace in as brief a manner as is consistent with the magnitude of the subject, the geographical outline of the country, exhibiting also its various natural divisions ; after which the reader will be directed in successive chapters to a consideration of the natural productions, the manufactures, the commerce, and the social, educational and political institutions of the Province. A chapter will then be devoted to presenting such statistical information as may not have been necessarily interspersed throughout other portions of the work, and a closing chapter will be devoted to the removing of certain prejudices which exist with regard to the climate of Canada,

CHAPTER L* GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.

To obtain a correct view of the Geological features of the Province of Canada it must be regarded as connected with the physical structure of the bordering States of the American LTnion on the one hand, and with that of the sister British North American Colonies on the other hand. It will, therefore, be convenient to divide the subject in the first place into two great sections, and drawing a line in continuation of the Hudson River and Lake Champlain Valleys to the vicinity of Quebec, to consider the area to the west of it separately from that on the south of the St. Lawrence to the east, in consequence of important differences in their Geological conditions, each area belonging to a great triangle of fossiliferous strata, resting on supposed primary rocks, and containing coal measures in the centre ; but in neither case is it believed that these measures, at least as regards the profitable portion of them, come within the Province. The conditions in which these two great areas differ are the general quiescence and conformable sequence of the formations of the western division, and the violent conditions and unconformable relations prevailiDg among those of the eastern. To obtain, however, a complete and exhaustive view of the subject, a third great section must be included, comprehending what may be termed Northern Canada,

* This chapter is chiefly condensed and compiled from the very valuable Reports of the Provincial Geologist, "W. E. Logan, Esq., F. R. S.

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THE WESTERN DIVISION.

In illustrating the general relations of the rock formations of the Province, the great area in which the western division is ineluded, as connected with the Geology of Canada, may be described as a gigantic trough of fossiliferous strata, conformable from the summit of the coal to the bottom of the very lowest formations, containing organic remains, with a transverse axis reaching from the Wisconsin River and Green Bay, in Lake Michigan, to the neighbourhood of Washington, a distance of nearly 700 miles, and a longitudinal one extending from Quebec in a south-westerly direction to some point beyond the Tenessee River in Alabama. Contained within this vast trough, and resulting from gentle nndulations in the strata, there are three important subordinate basins, the centre of each of which spreads out in a gigantic coal field. One of these extends in length from the County of Logan, on the southern borders of Kentucky, in a north-westerly direction to the Rock River in Illinois, where it falls into the Mississippi, a distance of 360 miles, and in breadth from the mouth of the Missouri to the County of Tippecanoe, on the Wabash in Indiana, 200 miles.

Presenting an oval form, this coal field covers 55,000 square miles. The second occupies the heart of the State of Michigan, and reaching 100 miles in an east and west direction, from within 13 leagues of the lake of that name, to Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron, and 150 miles in a north and south line from the neighbourhood of the Rivers Manistee and Ausable, it exhibits an irregular pentagonal shape, and comprises a superficies of 12,000 square miles. The third carboniferous area stretches longitudinally about 600 miles in a north-easterly course, from the State of Tennessee to the north-eastern corner of Pennsylvania, where many outlying patches belong to it, and 170 miles transversely from the north branch of the Potomac in Maryland, to the south-eastern corner of Summit County in Ohio, 12 leagues south of Cleveland on Lake Erie. It comprises 60,000 square miles, and possesses a sinuous subrhomboidal form. The main trunk of the Ohio serpentines through the upper portion of this region for about 400 miles of the upper part of its course. The Susquehanna and its tributaries intersect the north-eastern extremity of the deposit, and the valleys of denudation in which these waters flow, assisting the effect of a series of nearly equidistant undulations in the strata,

s there break its continuity into the outliers alluded to, which generally rest on mountain tops in the interrupted prolongation of a number of narrow subsidiary troughs, resulting from the undulations in question, and giving an irregular deeply indented contour to the outcrop of the main body of the coal. The chief part of the outliers, and the main body of the deposit, yield bituminous fuel, as well as the other two great coal fields described ; but to the east of the Susquehanna, three large outliers yield anthracite coaL

The undulations which have been mentioned constitute an important feature in the structure of the country between the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. Three ridges, preserving a remarkable degree of parallelism, have been traced for vast distancesj ranging in a sinuous south-westerly course from Lower Canada to Alabama.

From beneath the three great coal fields which have been mentioned the subjacent formations crop out in succession, surrounding their carboniferous nuclei with rudely concentric belts, of greater or less breadth, according to the thickness or dip of the deposit, and taking a wider sweep as they descend in the order of superposition, while they conform, at the same time, in their superficial distribution, to all the sinuosities and irregularities occasioned by geographical and geological undulations. The organic remains of these rocks proclaim them to be contemporaneous with the Silurian and Devonian epochs of Europe, including the old red sandstone. These fossiliferous formations, wherever they have been found in actual contact with the rocks beneath, rest upon masses of the primary order. "Without entering upon the question of whether there be evidence of non-fossiliferous sedimentary strata, it will be sufficient for our present purpose to unite all the subjacent rocks, whether metamorphic or primary, and to class them under the latter denomination.

The lowest of the fossiliferous strata is a sandstone of variable quality, more purely silicious towards the bottom, and calciferous towards the top, which gives support to a thick and remarkably persistent deposit of limestone, strongly distinguished by its organic remains. This limestone thus becomes an admirable means of tracing out the perimeter of the great western area under consideration. From the north-west border of North Carolina it sweeps in a broad belt across Virginia to the junction of the Shenandoah and Potomac. Thence, traversing Maryland, it

CANADA.

passes through Pennsylvania, by Harrisburg on the Susquehanna, and Belvidere on the Delaware, accompanied up to this point by the underlying sandstone. Diminished in its thickness it thence crosses New Jersey, and reaching Poughkeepsie it passes up the valley of the Hudson and Champlain, keeping to the east by the river and the lake, and attains the neighbourhood of Missisquoi Bay. Entering Canada it proceeds towards Quebec, and reaches the vicinity of that fortress; and a stratified limestone answering its condition is quarried and burned in the Seigniory of St. Hyacinthe. As Quebec itself does not stand upon the formation, it probably crosses the St. Lawrence higher up the stream ; but it may be seen in the quarries of Beauport, and further down the river, and its limit in that direction is to be found near Cape Tourment, where the underlying primary rocks come to the water's edge. Turning at this point, and following the northern outcrop of the deposit up the valley of the St. Lawrence, it is found to run along the foot of a range of syenitic hills of a gneissoid order, which preserve a very even and direct south-westerly course, and down the flank of which the various tributaries of the great river are successively precipitated in rapids and cascades. On the Maskinonge the syenitic range is about twelve miles in a direct line from the St. Lawrence, on the Achigan about twenty, and it strikes the Riviere du Nord about half a mile south of the Village of St. Jerome. Following this stream, the primary rocks, which are close upon its northern bank, gradually assume a course with less of southing in it, until they reach Lachute Mills, where their direction becomes nearly due east. Along this line, from Cape Tourment, the basset edge of the limestone does not in all cases come quite up to the primary rock. There is, occasionally a space left between the two for the sandstone beneath, and on the Riviere du Ford the calciferous part of this rock, capped by the limestone, is seen in several places in a well defined escarpment about half a mile from the syenitic range, dipping southward at an angle of six degrees, which is probably one or two more than the average inclination along the strike of the northern outcrop thus far traced.

Leaving the Riviere du Nord at Lachute Mills the edge of the fossiliferous strata, still well defined by the rise of the primary rocks from below them, crosses the Township of Chatham, pursuing a direct course to Grenville on the Ottawa, where the calca-

CANADA.

reous deposit is seen at the upper end of the canal. A little above the village the primary range comes upon the river, which may correctly be considered the general division between the two, until we attain the Township of Hull. A bend in the Ottawa there, cutting deep into the limestone, leaves four or five miles t^readth of it on its left bank, and the formation displayed in lofty precipices in the neighbourhood of Bytown affords the magnificent scenery of the Chaudiere Falls. It reaches, it is understood, the Island of Allumettes, and thence, turning southward, runs through the Townships of Pakenham, Ramsay and Drummond, crosses the Rideau Canal and Rideau Lake in Elmsley, where, with the subjacent sandstone, it is seen in section at the Upper Narrows, resting on the primary rocks, and dipping to the north of east at an angle of four degrees ; and sweeping round the adjoining corner of Bastard and Yonge it traverses Elizabethtown, and reaches the St. Lawrence in the neighbourhood of Brockville. The limestone deposit, following the St. Lawrence down to St. Regis, has a wide spread of the sandstone coming from beneath on the United States side of the river, the lower edge of which passes by Canton, Hopkins and Malone, to Chateauguay, in a line north of east. Here it makes a sudden turn to the south-east, and the limestone, sweeping round at its proportionate distance, comes upon the western shore of Lake Champlain, at the mouth of the Chateauguay River, about five miles up which its base is seen. Running along the shore of the lake it reaches Peru, where the basset edges of both sedimentary deposits come close together. Following up the lake they attain Whitehall. They then bend round to the valley of the Mohawk, ascending which they arrive in the neighbourhood of Trenton, where a grand display of the limestone in the falls of that name gives origin to the New York designation of the upper part of the deposit. From this the limestone gains the Black River, and follows down the whole of its course to Lake Ontario, of which it forms the coast, from Ellisburgh to a point below Cape St. Vincent. Again entering Canada, it composes Wolfe Island, and the upper part of Howe Island, and it is seen resting on the primary rocks in Cedar Island, without the interposition of the sandstone. Kingston stands upon the formation, ana the base of it, cropping out several miles to the north of the town, strikes away to the Townships of Madoc and Marmora, in each of which the primary rocks are seen giving it support near their respective iron works*

Then it runs to Rama on Lake Sinicoe, and sinks under the waters of Lake Huron in Georgian Bay. Between Kingston and Lake Huron the general dip of the formation is so small that it is next to impracticable to measure it. The breadth of the band it presents is consequently considerable, thirty-five miles being the measure from the base at Marmora to its summit at Newcastle on Lake Ontario. The north-eastern and northern shores of Lake Huron are described by Dr. Bigsby as presenting a primary country , and they may be taken as the boundary of the sedimentary deposit we are following, from the point where it is lost beneath the waters of Georgian Bay, until it re-appears at St. Mary's Falls, at the exit of Lake Superior, where the Michigan geologists describe a limestone apparently answering its conditions. Thence it reaches Green Bay on Lake Michigan, and proceeds to the Wisconsin River, following it down to its junction with the Mississippi.

SERIES OF FOSSILIFEROUS DEPOSITS.

Having thus traced, as far as necessary, the contour of the lowest deposits of the fossiliferous area under description, and having given the position and superficies of the coal-fields which spread out at the summit of the series, it will be understood that the whole of the space between the perimeter of the latter and the boundary of the former is occupied by the various belts or zones resulting from the outcrops of the successive formations. The lowest of these fossiliferous deposits is the sandstone already mentioned. It assumes various lithological appearances. At its base it is sometimes a quartz rock, hard and vitrious, and it frequently presents the appearance of a conglomerate, as at Gananoque. It is often an even-bedded, even-grained sandstone, yellowish brown and compact, or white and friable. But the typical quality of the whole mass, as seen at Potsdam in New York, where it is extensively quarried, is a yellowish brown sandstone. It is said to contain few fossils. The total thickness of the formation is 300 feet. This silicious deposit passes into a sandstone of calciferous quality, which the geologists of Pennsylvania class with the former, but those of New York consider a distinct formation. It is in general a fine-grained arenaceous limestone, with some beds of a pure calcareous quality. Its thick ness is about 250 feet. To this succeeds the important calcareous deposit of which the course has been so extensively traced. The lower part of this formation consists of a dark irregular limestone. It has a thickness of 130 feet, and upon it rests a dark blueish compact hard limestone, occasionally yielding marble. It has some drab colored beds, giving water lime. The thickness of this deposit may be about 140 feet. As well as the previous part, it is considered to possess peculiar fossils, and with it constitutes the New York inferior limestone formation. The superior formation is based in some parts upon a valuable ten feet bed of black marble, extensively worked on Lake Champlain, above which occur various strata of black limestone, alternating more or less with black bituminous shale, and associated in some places with one or two important bands of a grey colour, and of a more crystalline texture. This grey stone is extensively quarried at Montreal. At the top of the general deposit, which in New York is known as the Trenton limestone, the bituminous shale predominates over the limestone, and affords a passage to the succeeding formation.

The next deposit in the order of superposition is the black bituminous shale, differing very little from the argillaceous part of the previous formation. In Upper Canada it may be seen at "Whitby, whence it has a run to N ottawasaga Bay, and in Lower Canada on the Montreal side of the St. Lawrence. It has distinctive fossils. It does not exceed 100 feet in thickness.

Upon the preceding lies a deposit of thin grey sandstone strata alternating with fine easily disintegrating argillaceous shale beds of a greenish color. Occasionally there are variations in its lithological character, there being sometimes a band of red argillaceous and purple argillaceous shale, and above it a set of argillaceous strata, composed of flattened laminated pieces, with a glossy black exterior. Its thickness may be estimated at 1400 feet.

The next superimposed deposit is a grey even-bedded sandstone, of a rather fine-grained durable quality, used for building purposes. It has few fossils, and its thickness is about 100 feet.

The total thickness of the rocks enumerated does not reach 2500 feet. The summit of the formation last mentioned, after running up the south side of the Mohawk valley, gains the State of New York at Oswego. Thence, in a course parallel to the outcrops of the formations above it, it reaches Oakville near the head of Lake Ontario, from which point it bends round to Collingwood, on Nottawasaga Bay in Lake Huron. If a line, therefore, be drawn between these two points, on the two lakes, it is probable, taking into consideration the extremely moderate dip and undisturbed condition of the strata, that no deposit higher in the series than the grey •sandstone will be found in any part of Canada between that line and Quebec. There are still to be interposed between the grey sandstone and the true coal measures a mass of strata equal at the lowest computation to between 4000 and 5000 feet, and we are therefore not warranted reasonably to anticipate the occurrence of any part of the true coal measure in the district in question, — a conclusion which every day's experience is justifying.

Continuing an enumeration of the formations in an ascending order of superposition, the next in succession to the grey sandstone is a variegated red and green, marly and shaly sandstone, of a crumbly nature, with which are associated some bands of quartzose grey sandstone. Brine springs issue from this formation, one of which exists at St. Catherines in Upper Canada, and is used for medicinal purposes, an Artesian well having been sunk into it. The thickness of this deposit is estimated at about 600 feet.

Upon the preceding rests a set of strata consisting of bright green shales, associated with a partial bed of oolitic fossiliferous Iron ore, of which the greatest observed thickness in any place is two feet, and interstratified with two bands of more or less impure limestone, containing stratified organic remains. The thickness of the deposit may be estimated at 80 feet.

The next formation consists of calcareo-argillaceous shale of a blueish color, abundantly fossiliferous, on which a few beds of silieio-argillaceous limestone constitute a passage into a strong calcareous rock above. The lower part of this consists of a cemented, mass of broken encrinital columns, often beautifully variegated with red, to which succeeds a thick-bedded grey limestone, followed by one of a darker color, upon which rests a brownish bituminous limestone, sparry below, and marked by the presence of sulphurets of zinc and of lead above, and the whole is crowned by a set of slaty dark grey calcareous beds with mamillated surfaces separated by thin laminae of bituminous shale. It is over a slope and precipice which presents the whole thickness of this limestone that the rapids and cataract of Niagara fall. It is said to be in the north-western development of the limestone of this Niagara group that the great lead mines of Wisconsin exist.

We now come to a deposit of valuable economic character : in the lower part it consists of variegated green-spotted red shales^ surmounted by greenish and drab-coloured slaty limestone strata, alternating with red shales, which are followed by brownish calcar reous and argillaceous shales, enclosing white and dark-coloured masses of gypsum, of which there appear to be two ranges capable of being profitably worked, separated from one another by a band of porous limestone. Cavities of great magnitude exist in the gypsiferous part of the deposit, and the whole is capped by calcareous strata, fit for hydraulic cement. This formation is the seat of a number of valuable brine springs. The fossils of the formation are not numerous, and its thickness is about TOO feet.

This deposit, so valuable for its gypsum, salt and hydraulic lime, occupies a belt of country on the south side of Lake Ontario, and, passing into Canada across the Niagara River, occupies nearly all the neck of land separating Lake Ontario from Lake Erie. This whole assemblage of deposits skirts the shore of the former lake through Niagara County, and, attaining the extremity of it, the strike turns northward towards Cabot's Head on Lake Huron. On the east side of it is the red and green sandstone, and to the west will be the gypsiferous rocks, some of which are already worked for their plaster, on the Grand River, near the Town of Paris, U. C. In the general classification of the New- York system of formations these rocks are followed by five successive deposits of limestone, which thin out before reaching Canada, their thickness being 200 feet.

To these calcareous rocks succeed three deposits of a silicious character, of an average thickness in New York of 100 feet, which also thin out before reaching Canada.

Resting on the sandstone in the eastern part of New York, and on the hydraulic limestone of the west, the next deposit in ascending order is calcareous. It consists of beds of limestone of a light grey color. It yields a handsome variegated marble. The thickness is about TO feet.

These united bands of limestone strike into Canada on the Niagara River, whence they run westward along the shore of Lake Erie for some distance. They are recognized again in Ohio and Michigan at the head of the lake, and they form a belt across the extremity of the southern peninsula of Michigan. In Canada patches of the immediately succeeding deposits may be found in. parts of the old Western District. The lowest of these is a black

CANADA. IT

bituminous shale. The thickness of this deposit is about 50 feet, and it passes into a dark shale of a more slaty character, and gradually passes into a stronger rock. This again becomes a blueishgrey calcareous shale at the top, and is followed by a thin band of encrinal limestone, to which succeeds a persistent greyish-blue marly rock. Its fossils are numerous, and its thickness, which diminishes from east to west from 1000 to 300 feet, may be stated at 500 feet. On the top of this group rests a bed of partial limestone : its greatest thickness on the south side of Lake Ontario is 20 feet, and it dwindles down to nothing approaching Lake Erie. On the preceding limestone rests a deposit of deep black consisttent fissile shales. Its thickness- varies from 150 feet to 25 feet, thinning westwardly.

The next formation of the series consists of a group of rocks of a more or less arenaceous quality. The lowest of these is a greenish argillo-arenaceous shale, which is followed by a developement of green and black arenaceous shales, interstratified with thin beds of sandstone. The total thickness of the formation is estimated a$ 1000 feet.

To this succeeds a mass of grey greenish-grey and olive flaggy sandstones interstratified with shales, sometimes running into an impure limestone. Towards the top the sandstone occasionally presents the character of a conglomerate. The thickness of the formation is 1500 feet.

The next superimposed formation, where it is fully developed^ consists of sandstones, argillaceous and arenaceous shales, and impure arenaceous limestones and conglomerates. The general colour of the deposit is red. In the eastern part of New York, among the Catskill Mountains, the thickness of the formation is said to be little under 2500 feet, but it thins down to the westward, and on the south side of' Lake Erie it dies away altogether.

Such is the general character of the various deposits which fill up the great trough under consideration, within which the western section of Canada, as above delineated, is included.

INFERIOR ROCKS.

The general figure of the non-fossiliferous rocks upon which theorganic series rests may be inferred from the fossiliferous contour already described. In so far as Canada is concerned they constitute the whole of the northern parts of the Province, stretchingfrom one extremity to the other. They compose the north shores of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa, with the exception of the narrow strip of fossiliferous deposits between Cape Tourment and Grenville. They form the northern and eastern shores of Lake Superior, and the northern coast of Lake Huron, and from between Malchadash Bay in the latter and Allumettes Island in the Ottawa they run into a south-eastern spur, which terminates in a huge mountainous peninsular mass lying between Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario, and joined to the primary body by the narrow Isthmus of the Thousand Islands.