And going to the bow they looked out towards the western horizon.
"Another town," said Phil Evans.
"Do you recognize it ?" "Yes! It seems to me to be Montreal." "Montreal?
But we only left Quebec two hours ago!" "That proves that we must be going at a speed of seventy-five miles an hour." Such was the speed of the aeronef; and if the passengers were not inconvenienced by it, it was because they were going with the wind.
In a calm such speed would have been difficult and the rate would have sunk to that of an express.

In a head-wind the speed would have been unbearable.
Phil Evans was not mistaken.

Below the "Albatross" appeared Montreal, easily recognizable by the Victoria Bridge, a tubular bridge thrown over the St.Lawrence like the railway viaduct over the Venice lagoon.

Soon they could distinguish the town's wide streets, its huge shops, its palatial banks, its cathedral, recently built on the model of St.Peter's at Rome, and then Mount Royal, which commands the city and forms a magnificent park.
Luckily Phil Evans had visited the chief towns of Canada, and could recognize them without asking Robur.

After Montreal they passed Ottawa, whose falls, seen from above, looked like a vast cauldron in ebullition, throwing off masses of steam with grand effect.
"There is the Parliament House." And he pointed out a sort of Nuremburg toy planted on a hill top.
This toy with its polychrome architecture resembled the House of Parliament in London much as the Montreal cathedral resembles St.
Peter's at Rome.