More important, the skill of the engineer has surpassed what we then even dreamt of in his blasting of rock cuttings and tunnels through the Archaean rocks to Fort William, and this has been done by three main trunk lines of railway.

The old amphibious route of the fur traders and of Wolseley's Expedition has been superseded, the tremendous cliffs of the north shore of Lake Superior have been levelled and the chasm bridged.

To the west the whole wide prairie land has been gridironed by railways all tributary to Winnipeg, the enormous ascent of the four Rocky Mountain ranges, rising a mile above the sea, have been crossed by the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The giddy heights of the Fraser River Canyon are traversed, and this is but the beginning, for three other great corporations are bending their strength to pierce the passes of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

We see to-day scenes more after the manner of the Arabian Nights Entertainments than of the humble dream that Lord Selkirk dreamt one hundred years ago.
[Illustration: HON.

JOHN NORQUAY A native of Red River Settlement.
Became Cabinet Minister in 1871, afterward Premier of Manitoba.] The towns and cities of Manitoba have sprung up on every hand where the railway has gone and these are but the centres of business of twenty thousand farms whose owners have come to this land, many of them empty-handed, and are now blessed with competence and in many cases wealth.